Bask in the Shadow
by Lucis Aurora
Summary: Set 7 years after the end of Heaven from Hell, Draco has dragged himself up from the gutter and made a new life for himself, but he still struggles with the past and his perception of his own sanity.  This is the very bumpy story of he and Harry's happily ever after, where both begin to understand what love really means after the fairytales of youth have taken a few knocks.
1. Into the Ground

**A/N:**

**Well, here we are, 1****st**** chapter of the sequel to Heaven From Hell, hope you all like it!**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and lemon poppy seed muffins.**

* * *

><p>Ron gripped his fingers tightly around the wand concealed in the sleeve of his overcoat. It was here, he could feel it, skulking in the dark backstreets while the city drew itself into streaks of heat elsewhere. Four months he'd tracked it and every time he had it cornered it slithered from his fingers like hot grease. Though reckless in its abandonment of British Wizarding Law, it wasn't unpredictable or even particularly clever, just fast.<p>

It fed nightly: mechanical interactions borne out of necessity it seemed, and the bodies lay undisturbed where they fell. But the beast had shown itself to have a higher purpose, and this pattern was far more ambitious: a banshee, a centaur, and a veela so far. Each, when found, had a tooth ripped from their jaw in a manner so flawless that only magic could be responsible. Whatever the vampire's next trophy was had brought it up north to Edinburgh and Ron had followed: This time he would put an end to it's sick little scavenger hunt.

A loud thud sparked his attention from a darkened alleyway up ahead and he quickened toward it.

"You're a real piece of work you know that!" A harsh voice bit.

Ron shone a muggle torch in the direction of the voice and saw two men a fair way down the deserted lane: one pinned to the wall by the other. It was difficult to make out either man's face but neither had the deceptive willowy build of his vampire.

"Oi! What's going on down there!"

"If you know what's good for you, you'll keep walking," the attacker commanded without looking at him.

"I don't think so," Ron said, "You okay there?" He directed to the other man.

"I was until you stuck your oar in!" The man snarled.

And there was something about that snarl.

"Do I know you?" Ron asked, squinting to get a clearer look at the man.

The man laughed sarcastically, "Sweetheart, no one I know would be stupid enough to still be standing there. Now kindly **piss off**, I'm in the middle of something here."

Ron watched as the man raked his fingernails down the attacker's arm, realisation setting in as the 'attacker' grabbed the man's neck and smacked his head back against the stone wall, receiving a bite to his bottom lip for the trouble.

"Draco? Is that you?"

"Sorry love, wrong number," he taunted.

The 'attacker' growled in frustration, "Look will you ignore this wankrag and fuck me already!"

But the blond man put a hand on his chest and pushed him away with some force.

"Do one Danny," he said flatly.

"What?"

"I've lost my appetite, now fuck off."

Danny clenched his fists at his sides, blood from his arm dripping over his knuckles.

"One of these days I'm gonna get tired of your twisted little games Matt!"

"Aw, you promise?"

The blond man folded his arms and watched Danny go before pushing himself off the wall and casually walking in the opposite direction, away from where Ron stood in confusion.

Ron ignored the threatening scowl the rejected man threw at him as he thundered out of the alley. He was more interested in catching up to the disappearing blond.

"Is there a reason you're following me?"

"I know it's you Malfoy, I'd know that snarl anywhere."

The man laughed again, "I thought you said my name was Draco?" He stopped in front of a wooden double doorway; Ron thought the building looked like some kind of abandoned factory.

"If Harry could see you now, whoring yourself in dingy alleyways."

The man didn't turn around, but he did stop. Ron saw his shoulders square and his head roll from one side to the other, as if trying to wrench the sudden tension from his neck.

"I don't need to whore myself to anyone, I make more money in a week than most people do in a year."

With that he separated a key from the tangle in his hand and unlocked the door. Without any further acknowledgment he slipped inside and slammed the door.

Ron stared at the closed entryway and seethed. It had to have been Draco. The man had looked stronger than he remembered, and the clothing was too muggle, too _casual..._but that _voice, _that arrogant, cruel voice that had taunted him on a daily basis when they were younger. It had to have been him.

"Hello Ronald."

Ron spun around to a white face and sharp teeth.

"You!" He said as he raised his wand in sharp reflex.

"Aren't you rather bored of following me around like a pathetic puppy dear Ronald?"

* * *

><p>Draco crossed the hollow expanse of the building's ground floor toward the lift that stood in the centre. When he arrived, instead of pressing the button to take him up, he lent forward against it. His head was pounding: Was this it? Would he be ripped from his life here and-<p>

A loud cry of pain interrupted his thoughts.

'_Ron?'  
><em>

He ran back to the door and pushed the bar that ran horizontally across the inside to throw it open.

A large black cloak whipped into the sky as he did and Draco saw a crumpled body lying against the wall opposite. The red hair looked too cheerful against Ron's slack white face. Draco ran to him and dropped down to his knees. He felt for a pulse and found two deep puncture wounds. Ron gasped and blood spouted over the side of his lip, eyes spinning wildly until they found Draco's.

'_Vampire.'_

"Ron! Oh god Ron!"

The eyes flickered and he drew a ragged breath, his lips began to move but Draco could only make out one word, "Dead... dead."

"Don't you dare. Don't you dare die you red headed twat!" Draco shook him by the shoulders, being careful not to hit his head on the wall behind.

Ron was trying to speak again, "Not dead... he's not dead..."

He broke into a coughing fit and more blood spilled onto his front.

Draco couldn't think: Lost too much blood! If he had a wand... Did he need a wand? But he didn't know what spell. Did he even need a spell? Wasn't blood replenishment something that needed a potion? Ron had a wand.

"Ron, where's your wand!" But even as he spoke he saw it snapped in two under his old friend's hand. He cradled his arms around the limp body, his throat constricting at the reality of the situation: If he'd stayed outside, if he'd invited him in... hadn't Ron deserved that much from him?

"I'm so sorry," he whispered, "Please don't die."

He heard the red head's chest rattle and saw his eyes loll back into his head. His chest sunk and stayed there.

"No, damn it! No!" Draco slammed his hand to the ground and the sound rang out in silent night, it seemed too loud somehow. An odd yelp escaped from Draco's throat, but then the eyes came back! Ron chest rose and fell in an odd rhythm but Draco didn't care, it was moving again! Draco was so happy that gibberish began to fall off his tongue as he took in the sight.

But something wasn't right. He didn't feel right. He felt as though his insides were twitching in ways they weren't supposed to, and he was breathing too fast, they both were. His arms snapped away from Ron and returned to the ground in front of him, as if on instinct. He heard his own voice again but he didn't recognise the words. What the hell was happening to him!

He wanted to jump back, away from this situation, but he couldn't: his body didn't feel like his own anymore. Ron looked like he was convulsing and Draco looked on in horror as blood lifted up from his chest and back into his mouth and his eyes seemed to strobe. His mouth flapped too quickly for real speech and the sounds that escaped were short and sharp. Draco saw his arms grab the man's shoulders with inhuman speed as he involuntarily rattled him back and forth.

More words that weren't his, more actions that he couldn't control, and it was all too fast. Much too fast, and even as he thought it the pace quickened, finally throwing him backwards: He watched in terror as Ron got further and further away, replaced by a solid wooden door, and even that shrank away from him. He felt the cold steel of the lift brush his forehead for an instant before he was drawn backwards again. Back across the old factory floor, back through the door-

And then it stopped.

His head was light from it and he stumbled to the ground. A thud from behind him told him that Ron had too.

"What did you do!" He screamed without looking behind him.

Ron gasped for air, "You saved my life!"

Draco turned himself over to stare at the red head, "I didn't, I couldn't," he dragged himself backwards, eyes darting around the alleyway. He felt weak; he never felt weak anymore. "What did you do to me?" He whispered.

"I didn't-"

"It's not possible. Time doesn't just turn back on itself," the blonde's eyes glazed over as he became caught up in his own thoughts.

"Draco?" Ron edged toward him, concern evident on his face.

"Mad..." Draco breathed. He seemed lost inside himself now and took no notice of Ron's hand on his shoulder. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. "You'll drive me back to madness..."

"Draco, you were never mad," the words didn't seem to reach him, "Harry-"

The blond erupted: "That name, that face! Get it out of my head! My skin's crawling with him. Stop, please stop, I'm begging you to stop... You'll drive me mad..." he finished in a whisper.

Ron pushed the hair out of his friend's eyes and looked into them, but they were as dead as they had been seven years ago: the last time he'd visited Draco at the manor before he'd run from it all.

When he spoke again it was barely audible and his eyes remained unfocused, "I just wanted to live my own life. I just wanted to be free. I can't be free anymore can I? You'll put me back there in that place, and he'll haunt me, and I'll lose myself again..."

"Draco..."

"It's okay. I'll come quietly."

Ron regarded him for some time. How could all that arrogance, that strength, that _fire _be extinguished so quickly? Was the man's grip on reality really so fragile that it could be broken so easily?

Draco had saved his life; He didn't know how, but he had. He'd stared down at his dead body and the blond huddled over him; he'd seen the flash of magic emanate from Draco's hand as it slammed into the ground in fury. Didn't he owe him something for that? A life for a life?

Harry would understand if he explained... Even if just to buy some time... If they could approach the situation in a less traumatic way, perhaps then...

Ron tilted Draco's head up and directed his now unbroken wand at his forehead, noting the lack of a reaction with worry.

"Obliviate," he said, and took a deep breath, "You never came back outside. You convinced me that you weren't Draco. You have nothing to worry about: No one is going to force you to come home. You will go back into that building and continue to wherever you were headed when you first went in. Understand?"

Draco nodded vacantly and within minutes was gone.

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><p><strong>AN:**

**So... what do you think? All comments are welcome. I thrive on feedback, particularly the kind that involves suggestions on how to improve so please don't hold back.**

**I should warn you that I plan to make the chapters of this story more substantial than that of HFH, so please don't be surprised if updates are less frequent (think fortnightly instead of weekly, but that's not set in stone, could be quicker).**

**x X x**

**'Rora  
><strong>


	2. Every Grain

**A/N:**

**Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter. I do try to reply to all reviews directly unless those persons have private messaging disabled. If you haven't received a reply and were expecting one then please check this setting. Hope you enjoy the new chapter!**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and tattie scones.**

* * *

><p>"Good work today Class! Your homework for this weekend is to find and research a defensive spell of your choice. Prizes will be given out for the most unusual, and the most useful. Please hand these assignments in to Professor Fielding at Monday's lesson so they can be forwarded to my home. I will see you, as ever, the following week."<p>

Harry took a sweeping bow and grinned as his forth years filed out of the classroom in good cheer. He flicked his hand at the chalkboard to clear the day's writings, coughing at the cloud of dust that this action created.

"Mr Potter?" He heard Professor Sinistra call to him from the fireplace.

"Yes Headmistress?"

"Would you please come up to my office? I'd like a chat."

That probably wasn't a good sign, he thought. They'd had rather a few 'chats' recently; normally these were rather one sided. He nodded his assent and the head disappeared from the grate. Five minutes later he was standing at the top of the stairs to her office, and gave a sharp knock to indicate his arrival before stepping inside.

"Afternoon Mr Potter, please sit."

Harry did as requested, ignoring the portraits as they peered down at him: some politely intrigued, others downright nosey. That of Professor McGonagall gave a stern eye, mouthing the words: _'What have you done now?'_

"I am concerned over the lack of structure in your teaching methods," the Headmistress started.

"I wasn't aware you'd observed my teaching methods first hand Professor."

She shot him a wry look, her eyes twinkling in a way somewhat reminiscent of the wizard whose portrait hung on the wall directly behind her.

"Don't get cute with me Mr Potter," she leant forward and waggled her finger at him.

"I'm sure I've mentioned that my name is actually Mr Malfoy now, Professor. I haven't actually been _'Mr Potter'_ for at least seven years."

His headmistress pursed her lips, clearly unimpressed with what she considered to be a diversion tactic.

"Oh come on, when has Defence Against the Dark Arts ever had any kind of structure? When I was at school we had a different teacher every year and most of them were complete plonkers. You _do_ remember Gilderoy Lockhart I take it?"

The Headmistress looked momentarily flabbergasted, "So you're saying you don't _care_ whether your pupils receive an adequate education!"

"Well of course I care! I'm just saying that it doesn't hurt to shake things up every once and a while. I want my kids to be able to think on their feet, I want them to be creative, to play to their strengths: that's what defence is all about."

"They're not heading out to war Mr Potter,"

"How could you possibly know that?"

"Well obviously I don't, but it's highly unlikely. We're getting off track here," She brushed him off, "Professor Fielding-"

"Here we go..."

"She says you won't follow her lesson plan."

"Why should I? I don't tell her how to teach theory so what grounds does she have to tell me how to teach practical? She's not my superior. Just because I don't have a three-hundred-and-twenty-six point plan does not mean I'm neglecting my responsibilities here. I have a lot of respect for Professor Fielding, but I think that she needs to focus on her area of expertise and trust me to take care of mine."

"She says your rapport with the pupils undermines her ability to teach them."

Harry shrugged, "Kids are always going to be happier _doing_ than reading. I can't help that the pupils enjoy casting spells more than studying them. This isn't a popularity contest for me."

"How would you feel if we split the pupils next year? So rather than you both working a weekly rotation, Fielding can take the 1st to 4th Years and you can take the 5th to 7th Years."

Harry shook his head vehemently, "The kids won't benefit from that."

"Are you sure you aren't being clouded by your own needs?"

Harry couldn't just sit any longer. He stood and paced the room, taking deep measured breaths as he did to calm the anger roiling in his stomach.

"You're right: I can't be here to teach every week of the term. I have a commitment to my family and I won't rest until it's fulfilled. But genuinely and without bias, because I really do care about these kids: I don't think what you're proposing is in their best interests. Fielding's got no field experience - no pun intended. She wouldn't know a real duel if it broke out in her underskirts."

"You may be right Mr Potter. I think it would be best to observe each of your classes for a week to see the issues firsthand."

"Be my guest Professor."

"I'll start with Professor Fielding next week and I'll see you the week after. May I ask: where are you off to this time?"

"Hong Kong."

"I hope you find him Harry," she said softly.

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><p>Half an hour later Harry stepped through the fireplace into the drawing room of his home. Within seconds a small girl with waist length blond hair had wrapped her arms around his stomach.<p>

"Daddy!" She looked up at him with big green eyes.

"Good Morning little one!"

"Silly! It's nearly tea time," she giggled.

He picked her up and spun her around before kissing her cheek and setting her down again.

"I see. Well why don't you wash up for dinner my darling and then you can tell me all about your day, hmm?"

Dinner was a simple affair. It had taken years for Harry to drum out of Lucius the insistence that every meal should consist of at least five courses of frivolity. It amused him to no end that he should be tucking into a plate of macaroni cheese in the formal dining room of Malfoy Manor. Harry was certain that several of Lucius' predecessors were cursing him from the grave.

He paid his daughter rapt attention as she regaled him with tales of the day's adventures, which mostly involved exploring the gardens with her grandfather. Throughout the excited chatter Lucius had remained silent and this didn't go unnoticed by Harry.

"What is it?" He asked.

"There _was_ one small incident. Would you like to tell your father about it Astrid?"

The little girl looked down at her plate, deliberately causing her long blond hair to fall over her face, "No," she answered quietly.

"Will someone tell me what's going on?" Harry demanded.

"Without my permission, your daughter conned one of the house elves into giving her enough chocolate to feed a third world country, and subsequently threw up all over the conservatory, didn't you Astrid?"

"Yes..."

"And when I asked her what had made her so sick she denied all knowledge. It wasn't until I found one of the house elves battering itself about the head with a pot that I got to the truth of the matter.

Harry's face grew stern.

"Is this true?"

"Yes Father."

"You don't steal, and you don't lie. I'm disappointed in you Astrid. What do you have to say?"

"But Daddy, I just-"

"What do you have to say?" Harry pressed.

"I'm sorry Father."

"Are you finished your dinner?" at her nod he continued, "Good. Go to your room."

He watched her leave the table and sighed.

"Don't you think it was a little harsh to dismiss her like that?" Lucius asked as he beckoned them back through to the drawing room.

"No. I'm her father; it's my job to teach her the importance of honesty."

"She's 6!" Lucius choked as he poured them both a glass of firewhiskey

Harry laughed, taking up his glass, "Would you have been any softer on Draco?"

"That was different. Narcissa spoiled him rotten; someone had to keep him in line."

"Well that's just fine then: I'll play you and you can play Narcissa."

Lucius scowled at this remark, but the glint in his eye betrayed his amusement at the notion.

"I've been thinking perhaps she should go to school," Harry said carefully.

"It's a bit early for Hogwarts don't you think?"

"Muggle children start school when they're five, sometimes four."

"What on earth for?"

"Well, so they can learn to read and write and count."

"Draco had a private tutor for that. Most wizarding children do, the ones that don't are taught by their parents."

"I know that, but I think she could be missing out. School's not just about academics, it's about learning to interact with other kids, you know"

Lucius frowned slightly, "It sounds like you've already made up your mind."

"I haven't," Harry shook his head, "I have my reservations too. I mean, she's going to grow up to be a powerful witch. What if she creates some kind of mishap? I know that the ministry has teams that deal with accidental underage magic, but it would be hard on her to have to keep a secret like that from her friends."

"Was it hard for you?"

"I didn't have any friends..."

They lulled into a thoughtful silence, each occasionally taking a sip from their respective glasses.

"So, what do you think? Good idea, bad idea?"

"Do you have a specific school in mind?"

"Um, well there was one," Harry replied, "Frogwells? I know, daft name, but they have a really good reputation. I did some research and it really looks like an amazing environment for her to grow and learn. I know it sounds clichéd but I think she'd be in her element there."

Lucius considered this, "I have to tell you that it's against all of my baser instincts," he said eventually.

Harry nodded slowly, "I wonder what Draco would think?" He whispered to himself more than Lucius.

Lucius looked at him and took in the way his son-in-law's eyes ghosted over as they always did when he pondered on such things.

"I think he would want her to experience all the things he didn't," he admitted.

"We could try it for a term and see if she settles in?" Harry ventured, looking decidedly unsure of himself.

Lucius straightened his posture and projected an air of confidence, "It's the right decision," he said firmly. "You know, you _are_ a good father. I know sometimes I-"

"I know," Harry cut in.

"He'd be proud, I'm sure of it."

"Sometimes," Harry hesitated, "I worry that he'll come back, and he'll meet her, and he'll disapprove... somehow..."

"Of what exactly?"

"I don't know, that's the thing. I know it's completely irrational, she's such sweet girl..."

"Look, she's his daughter: he'd love her if she had three heads and a sailors tongue. But as it is, she's beautiful, kind-hearted, and smart as hell. You have nothing to worry about, you've done a good job, son."

"Thanks. I'm sure you're right. I think I'm gonna head up to my room, have a bath, try to clear my head."

"Not a bad plan."

Harry coasted in the direction of his bedroom, his thoughts clouded by the events of the day. Perhaps that was no accident. Better to mull over these things than drift into that familiar daydream: the storyline that he'd crafted these past years, each branch of possibility explored, each conversation perfected. It was beyond foolish, he knew that. Draco was his own person after all, and how well did they really know each other anyway? He couldn't possibly predict how his husband would react to some of the things he needed to share with him.

It struck him how bizarre the whole thing was: to be married to a man he didn't fully know, to have spent the best part of 10 years in all trying to bring them together. Harry had drunkenly pondered as much to Lucius the Christmas before last. His blunt response had been: _'Love is a Psychopath Harry, you don't need to know every grain of a person to love them, that would be far too rational'_.

Somehow Lucius always knew how to cast all of Harry's ugly doubts to one side. It turned out that he wasn't actually a despicable human being. Harry supposed that his younger self would have found that incredibly bizarre too.

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><p><strong>AN:**

**Hope you enjoyed, please read and review!**

**x X x**

'**Rora**


	3. Perched High

**A/N:**

**So, here goes chapter 3, hope you enjoy, it's a long one and it's early!  
><strong>

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and Iron Bru.**

* * *

><p>"Sir, have you ever heard of a person being able to travel back through time?"<p>

Ron's question received a surprised chortle.

"I assume you're familiar with time-turners Weasley?"

"Yes Sir, sorry, I wasn't being clear. When you use a time turner it's like the whole world around you rewinds, right? Including yourself, like, you end up with two of yourself running around."

"Very astute Weasley," his boss replied.

"Have you ever heard of someone being able to rewind _themselves_, and perhaps whatever, _whoever_, they're touching at the time, while the rest of the world continues on as normal?"

"That's not how time turners work."

"I mean without a time turner Sir."

"Impossible Weasley. Where is all this coming from?"

Ron was stuck for words. How could he explain this without divulging the man who had made it possible? The location of Draco Malfoy was worth a small fortune. Harry's story was world famous: _'War hero returns from the dead to reunite with mentally unstable soulmate only for said soulmate to vanish into thin air', _there wasn't a witch or wizard alive that didn't know the significance of this find. If he told Kingsley it would be all over the Ministry of Magic before Noon, and if the gossip mill were feeling particularly energetic -which it would be for this- the news would be in all the major wizarding presses for the afternoon editions.

He couldn't let Harry find out that way.

The problem as Ron saw it: Draco didn't particularly seem to want to be found. If this wasn't handled very carefully there was a high chance the man would bolt and it would take them another seven years to find him again. Worse, there was a good possibility that confronting Draco with everything -the fact that Harry was alive, the fact that he had a daughter- would break his sense of sanity. And even if none of that were an issue, he'd observed aspects of Draco's life here firsthand that would rip Harry's heart apart: Draco had moved on, had found himself a new relationship, he couldn't even bear to hear Harry's name...

Ron's stomach twisted in response to it all: What the hell was he going to do?

"Weasley? Are you still there?"

"Uh, it's nothing Sir, I just had a really bizarre dream last night."

"I should think you have more important things to concentrate on at the moment than that Weasley!"

"Sorry Sir. As I said, I'm making good progress on the vampire, I won't let you down."

"Good. Remember, the sooner we stop this scumbag the sooner you can come back to London and have a well earned day off."

"I'm counting on it Sir," he confirmed, blowing out his defero candle to end their conversation.

* * *

><p>Hours later, he found himself perched high in the steel rigging of a revamped theatre, warmed by the heat of the swarm that thrummed below him. He stretched his wings and hopped gingerly from one claw to the other. His brothers made fun of his animagus form, a sparrow, but in situations like this it was beyond useful. He was growing anxious though. The large industrial lights had dimmed approximately five minutes ago and in the darkness he had lost sight of his target.<p>

The vampire was breaking from the norm tonight. Instead of shunning any form of crowd, he had thrown himself into the thick of one. Ron was wary as to why. Perhaps he was feeling bold. He'd been long gone by the time Draco had saved him, rewound him. As far as the Vampire was concerned he'd won a major victory against the Auror Department last night.

He hadn't picked up on it at the time: everything had happened so fast and his mind was flooded with the revelation that Draco was capable of such magic. The discrepancy had come to him as he slept and it pulled him bolt upright in his bed: As their bodies, his and Draco's, were being dragged backwards against their will, the rest of the world had been oblivious. Draco had been yanked back through the doors of the disused factory, and Ron had been pulled back to his feet. He'd felt his blood return to him and the puncture wounds in his neck fade away, but the vampire had been absent from the proceedings.

There were other things too: they were both aware of what had happened, if the rest of the world had been affected then they would have been aware too. In addition, his watch showed that more time had passed than would have been possible if time as a whole had folded back on itself. His wand however, and his clothes, had rewound with him. He assumed that this was because they were touching him when Draco did whatever it was that he did. Frankly the whole thing made Ron's head hurt.

The redhead jumped out of his reverie as the lights fixed to the supports around him clapped on, flooding the stage with clarity. Just enough of this caught the audience that he was able to pick the Vampire out of the sea once more. He seemed engrossed on the performance that was starting up on the stage, they all did. Ron chanced a glance and rocked forward at the sight, steadying himself only just in time to prevent a freefall. She was beautiful, though not in a typical way. Her hair looked like it was laced with fire, and she danced -if that's what this was- to a haunting chorus of strings. Her body twisted in ways that seemed impossible to him; her bare feet seemed as at home in the air as they did sliding over the gleaming wooden boards. She crept forward to the front of the stage and stepped onto the metal grates there, turning in every directing to draw the audience in. Ron glanced back to the vampire and was relieved to find that he hadn't moved an inch.

Everything fell into darkness again, the music faltered, the collective intake of breath punctuated by the silence that it left in its wake.

Then, without warning, the room exploded. Ron wasn't sure what came first: the crowd roared, the music flared fast and hot, and there she was again, spinning the world beneath her feet. She seemed completely oblivious when the flames erupted from the grates under her. Ron couldn't break his gaze as the inferno engulfed her calves and forked up over her thighs. He found himself immensely grateful that she'd divested herself of the sheer lengths of fabric that had draped from her during that slow introduction, he was certain they'd have caught on fire. He berated himself for this thought: surely he could think of more interesting reasons to appreciate the improved outfit? _'Dear Merlin I need a girlfriend...' _He cursed inwardly, eyes flicking back to ensure the vampire still hadn't moved.

* * *

><p>The blur of heat and limbs was over all too soon, and Ron found himself peering over the gutter of the theatre while the vampire lurked in the alley below, eyes trained on the back door. Another bird swooped down next to him and Ron flapped his wings and puffed out his chest, <em>'Get lost you featherbrain, I'm on a fucking mission here!'<em> He thought as he squawked to intonate his point.

The back door opened and two people stumbled out, laughing with and clinging to each other, unaware of the two sets of eyes that watched them. The girl he recognised from the stage, though now she wore an ankle length black coat and her strawberry blond hair fell in waves to her waist. The man on her arm had short sandy hair. He wore a black overcoat and carried a silver cane, presumably for decoration as he seemed to have no trouble walking.

They wandered out of the alley and through the streets as the vampire tailed them and Ron flew overhead. At length they came to another alley, one familiar to Ron: he'd died there last night. The young couple stopped by the door Draco had used and disappeared inside. Ron was considering whether to swoop down when he saw his vampire leap unnaturally high toward the sky and transform into a large bat. The bat climbed upwards and made for the roof, Ron followed suit but aimed for a spot further along the building to avoid drawing attention to himself.

There was a garden up here, a very beautiful one. Roses of every colour bordered patches of grass, which seemed odd given that it was late October. There was a herb garden over to one side, and a fountain which looked like a dragon breathing water toward the heavens. There were two stone-bricked outhouses: one stood in the centre of the rooftop and had a set of steel doors inlaid on one side, the other was larger and stood to the far side. It had heavy mahogany doors, panelled with stained glass. Multicoloured ceramic pots overflowing with flowers were doted around a paved courtyard-type area, where three curved marble benches surrounded a foot high circle of stone bricks topped with a dome-shaped wrought iron cover.

The steel doors in the central outhouse were emitting a mechanical kind of noise and Ron realised that this was an elevator. The young couple practically fell out of it, their shared smiles lighting the night sky.

"I'll get the wine," the man said, heading for the other outhouse.

"I'll get the fire," the girl replied.

The man disappeared through the door, leaving it slightly agar so that Ron could see him descend quickly downwards. _'There must be stairs to the floor below,_' he thought.

The girl kicked off her shoes and tip-toed over to the centre of the courtyard. She lifted the domed cover from the circle of stone bricks, set it down, and stepped one foot into it.

"Rich, bring up more coal, this needs a top up soon," she called as fire sprung up around her foot from the pit and she stepped back out of it, hopping as she tried to brush the ash from her sole.

'_She's a fucking Firefoot!' _

Apparently this was the confirmation the vampire was looking for. The bat swooped from nowhere, transforming on route as Ron did the same, a fraction of a second behind him. The vampire reached her first and grabbed her hard by the shoulders as her scream curdled the blood in Ron's heart.

"Petrificus totalus!" He roared, and the vampire seized, keeling over and toppling his would-be victim

"Asha!" Footfalls pounded from the mahogany doorway and the girl's friend came back into view, a wine bottle clutched in one hand and a frantic look on his face. Both he and Ron closed the distance to the site of the trouble, Ron hauling the Vampire away to the side.

"You are under arrest for the crimes against the Cooperation of Magical Races Act (1999), including but not limited to three counts of murder and three counts of defiling a corpse. The evidence against you is such that you will be held on remand in the Prison of Azkaban until a full case is brought forward for your prosecution. You will be provided with council if you do not have your own," Ron said as he placed a small back stone on the criminal's chest and watched him disappear to a holding cell.

"Are you alright?" He turned to the young couple.

"W-what just happened?" The girl's voice shook as her friend helped her to her feet.

"Vampire." Ron replied simply. "It seems he's been tracking you for some time. He was at your show tonight, he's been loitering around your building. I didn't know why until I saw you light that fire. We didn't think there were any of you left."

"My people keep to themselves," she breathed, "What did he want with me?"

"Your teeth. He's something of a trophy hunter. He's already caught up with a Centaur, a Banshee, and a Veela. Suffice to say he'll never see the outside of Azkaban."

"Christ almighty," the man ran his fingers through his hair and pulled at the collar of his shirt.

"I don't know how to thank you, you saved my life!" The girl threw her arms around Ron's neck and pressed him into a grateful hug, "I'm Asha by the way, this is my friend Richard," she said releasing him.

"Ron," he replied.

"How can we repay you Ron?" Richard took his hand and shook with a firm grip.

"That's really not necessary, it's my job."

"So are you like some kind of wizarding detective then?"

"I'm an Auror. Are you a muggle?"

"Your word, not mine, but I'm not magical if that's what you're trying to ask."

"Shouldn't you be a little more fazed by all this?"

He shrugged, "Very few things faze me."

He looked at Asha for confirmation of his statement but she looked distracted. It took Richard a few moments to understand why, but as the noise grew louder both of their faces paled.

"Shit," Asha cursed, "The lift! Ron you have to go!"

Ron realised that he could in fact hear the grinding of the elevator somewhere below them.

"What, why? Are you in danger?"

"No, no danger, but you're a wizard and you just can't be here right now." Richard answered.

"Okay I'll-" Ron stopped short as he heard the lift doors scrape open and saw both of his companions freeze. He turned to see Draco standing six foot behind him.

"Uh, Matt, I can explain-" Asha made to approach her friend but he held up a hand signalling her to stop.

"There's no point in calling me that Ash, he knows who I am." Draco's eyes bore into Ron's, "What the hell are you doing in my garden Weasley?" His tone was low and dangerous.

"Oh, so you know each other then?" Richard tried to keep his tone light; Draco ignored him.

"Answer the fucking question Weasley! Have you been spying on me?"

Ron rolled his eyes and snorted, "You always were a conceited arse Malfoy."

"Hey!" Asha smacked his arm, "Don't talk to him like that!"

Ron couldn't help but give her an apologetic look, "No Malfoy, I haven't. I've been tracking a vampire, who in turn has been tracking your friend here," he gestured to Asha, "I captured said vampire a few minutes ago, so my work here is done. Have a nice life, I'll be going now. It was nice to meet you both," he gave a curt nod to both Richard and Asha and made to apparate.

He'd made up his mind: He'd go to Harry, tell him everything he knew, and let him decide what to do with it. Getting involved in an argument with Draco would only complicate things further, and Harry would never forgive him if he screwed up the only chance they might ever get to bring his husband home.

"Have a nice life? Have a nice fucking life? Is that all you have to say to me?" Draco looked incredulous. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. He was supposed to be dragged kicking and screaming back to his father.

"Well what do you want from me Draco? The last time our paths crossed you clearly weren't pleased to see me, and you aren't exactly radiating friendly vibes right now either," Ron was growing agitated, why did the blond always have to make everything more difficult than it had to be? He shouldn't be the one having this conversation, this was Harry's job.

"Would you be?" Draco snarled. When Ron said nothing he continued in a softer tone, "I can't go back there Ron, it was suffocating me..."

"I know that Draco."

Draco considered him with sad eyes, "You don't know anything. You had your wife, you had your children, I had nothing. Every day surrounded by things that reminded me of him..." Draco tried to explain, "He'd be right there," He said as he lifted his hand to indicate a spot where no one stood and closed his eyes, "I'd feel him beside me, I'd feel my hands wrapping around him and his lips on mine. It was so _real_..." His eyes shot open again to stare directly into Ron's, "Madness, all of it. Impossible."

"It-" Ron tried to interrupt.

"I've worked hard you know, and I'm better than I was. I can accept the fact that he's gone, I can function; but if I think about him too long, everything starts to slip, and I'm not strong enough to stop it, and then I'm lost in this fantasy. I can't go back there; I have to stay in control. You think I fear my father but I don't. Seeing Harry: that's my greatest fear. That would mean there really was no hope for me."

Richard crossed to him. Ignoring the protests, he pulled his friend to him and held him there.

"He never told us why," Asha whispered to herself.

She and Ron looked on as Richard whispered something into Draco's ear and received a brief nod against his chest.

"Who's Harry?" Asha asked quietly.

"His soulmate," Ron answered.

"Don't use that word!" Draco shouted suddenly. He had pushed himself away from Richard slightly and his hand was extended, pointing at Ron to emphasise the command. Richard grabbed his wrist just as a large ceramic planter exploded to their right.

"Cool it mate," Richard said as he pulled Draco's face back to him. He locked their eyes and took deep deliberate breaths; the blond took the hint and copied these. After a while, he rested his head back against the chest in front of him and closed his eyes.

No one spoke for what seemed like an eternity. Asha looked from Ron to Draco and back again as though caught in a game of emotional tennis. Ron was terrified of saying something else that might make the situation worse. He could tell that he was dangerously close to losing Draco in one way or another.

At length Draco began to speak again, "That word implies that we were meant; that we were something other than a cruel mistake. But let's be honest, I never really deserved him." The blond turned in the arms around him and looked up at Richard. He wanted him to understand this part of him the way he understood everything else. "He was so beautiful, so strong, and so bloody noble. I was never any of those things..."

"Shhhh," Richard replied.

"Sometimes I hate him," his voice trembled, terrified that saying these words aloud might be so blasphemous that he'd be struck down by lightening, "I hate him for letting me fall in love with him... I hate him for giving me that hope, I hate him for leaving me, I hate him for being the person he was..." his chest rattled as he drew a steadying breath, "I hate him for making me need him so much that it tore every part of me to pieces... I hate that he's reduced me to this. I hate that I'm not strong enough to carry his memory with dignity. I hate the way he always saw the good in people over the bad. And I hate knowing that if everything were reversed he could never hate me the way I do him..." He trailed off, turning to look at Ron once more, "I don't even deserve to mourn him."

"Draco-"

"Don't. I don't want your comfort. I want you to understand. I can't handle the thought that you hate me for staying away, when really you should hate me for not leaving well enough alone in the first place."

"I've never hated you Draco."

"Don't send him here," came the whispered plea.

Ron was at a loss. "I won't," was all he could find to say.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Hope that was okay? And I hope you aren't all throwing your shoes at me right now. Please don't, it's not the shoes fault. **

**Let me know what you think?**

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	4. Books and Broken Furniture

**A/N:**

**Well, here we are, Chapter 4: Super early! **

**Now, the reason it's this early is because I've just come under a mountain of work and I won't be able to update for a few weeks, so this my way of saying sorry for that. I'll update Ch5 as soon as work calms back down again, k?**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and Iron Bru.**

* * *

><p>Richard sat on a worn out rust coloured sofa in the loft that he, Asha, and Draco shared, wringing his fingers as he glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time that night. 4.53AM. This definitely wasn't a good sign. He picked up the phone from its cradle on the coffee table and dialled the number he knew by heart once again, and was met <em>once again<em> by the irritatingly saccharine voice of the voicemail machine woman.

This time though he was frustrated enough to leave a message, "I know where you are Draco. And I know you'll regret it in the morning, so unless you want me to come over there in person you can damn well call me in the next 5 minutes or I will not be responsible for my actions!"

The minutes came and went. Still nothing. _'Fuck this,'_ he thought as he stood abruptly, checking his jeans pocket for the car keys he was sure were there.

The drive was aggressive, the tyres and the road wielding to each other like some kind of therapy as he ranted silently to the universe with clenched teeth. When he arrived at his destination he very nearly drove up onto the curb but managed to avoid it just in time. He rested his head on the steering wheel for a few moments to give himself time to breathe a veneer of calm into his system. He did however allow himself the satisfaction of slamming the car door shut behind him when the time came.

In the doorway of a building he'd only seen the inside of once, he pressed the buzzer he remembered to be correct, and waited for the familiar crackle that would tell him the resident of that particular flat had answered.

"Send him down Danny."

"Who?"

"You know damn well who!"

"Do you know what time it is Richard? We're trying to sleep..."

"Danny I swear to god-" He heard the speaker click and knew that Danny had hung up on him. He stared at the intercom in indignation, before taking a step back and kicking the door with the full force of his foot. It took three attempts but eventually it gave way and Richard climbed the stairs two at a time until he reached the second landing.

"Open this door Danny!" He shouted hammering it with the palm of his hand.

When it eventually opened to reveal the smug, faux-innocent expression on Danny's face, it was all Richard could do not to throw out his fists to meet it.

"Where is he?"

"See for yourself," Danny stood aside and gestured through an open doorway, smirking.

Draco's head was the only thing visible, resting on a mismatched pillow, the picture of sleep.

"Get up!" Richard growled but his friend didn't stir.

"Looks like he doesn't want to go with you, and as fun as this little fit of jealously has been, I think it's time for you to leave now."

"Danny, nobody in their right mind would be jealous of a worthless scrote like you. In case you need reminding, I don't bat for your team, but I won't let you take advantage of my best friend."

"Take advantage? Of Matt? Come off it! We both know he's far too cold and heartless for that."

"He's coming with me." Richard said through gritted teeth. He had approached the bed and was shaking Draco's shoulder to no avail; he threw the covers off in an attempt to provoke a reaction and staggered back at what he saw. Several red whelps streaked across Draco's back, some were bleeding, and all looked angry.

"What the fuck did you do to him!" Richard yelled, checking his friend's pulse and breathing.

"Only what he asked me to do. You know the games we play..."

"He's unconscious you prat!" Richard seethed. "Do you really think he'll thank you for this?"

The other man scowled as he watched Richard wrap one of his blankets around Draco and scoop him up in his arms.

"I'll see myself out."

Walking down the winding stairs proved far more difficult with the load he was carrying but Richard eventually made his way back to the car. He drove home at a far gentler pace, trying to piece his thoughts together. Somewhere along the way Draco began to stir.

"Where am I?" He asked, bringing his hand up to his eyes.

"Almost home."

Draco blinked a few times and stretched his arms out in front of him. An awkward silence swelled up between them as Draco took in his state of undress and winced at the pain in his back.

"You'll be paying to have my car cleaned, you're getting blood all over it."

"I didn't ask you to come get me. I don't need you to do the hero bit, I can look after myself."

"What the hell was that!" Richard demanded, unable to hold his tongue any longer.

"I was just... scratching an itch..."

"Bullshit Draco. I know your perverted, fucked-up, sadomasochistic brand of sex, and that wasn't it; that piece of shit didn't have a mark on him. That looked more like you punishing yourself."

Draco said nothing, but leaned his head on the window and looked out into the black rain.

"This isn't like you. Staying out all night, blowing off work."

"I haven't blown off work," a slight twinge of offence coloured Draco's voice.

"Yeah? So you're gonna make that 8am meeting are you? On no sleep, with blood seeping through the back of your shirt? Very professional, I'm sure you'll make a fantastic impression."

"Just shut up okay."

"Look, you've made it abundantly clear that you don't want to talk about the other night, and I'm not about to force you to, but I have to say something and you need to listen to me, okay?"

Draco nodded with a look of apprehension.

"We've known each other a long time, seven years even, and I always knew that you were running from something more than just your father and your magic. I knew there was more behind this fear of insanity than you let on."

"Well now you know," Draco said quietly.

"You said you didn't deserve to be with someone like that, but you do. And if this guy, this Harry, was everything you said he was then I'm fairly certain he'd agree. Stop selling yourself short with arseholes like Danny, you're better than that, love."

Draco gave his friend a weak smile, "Just get me to my bed, I'm so tired."

* * *

><p>Harry walked into his conservatory and promptly dumped his luggage on the floor, spreading his arms wide in expectation.<p>

"Daddy!"

"Well hello darling!" Harry exclaimed to his daughter as she ran toward him.

"How was Hong Kong?" Lucius asked from his chair in the corner.

"It was a bust," Harry grimaced. His father in law nodded, they'd known it had been a long shot and he wasn't surprised.

"Daddy?" Harry's eyes were drawn back down to his daughter as she tugged on the cuff of his sleeve.

"What is it Astrid?" He smiled.

"Why can't Papa come home?"

Harry and Lucius shared the same look they always did when she asked this question.

"Papa's wasn't well honey, he left so that he could get himself better."

"I know that Daddy, but why can't he come home now? Is he still sick?"

Harry met her sad eyes with his own, "I don't know sweetheart."

"Tell me what he was like." She often asked this, and Harry sensed that she was beginning to need more than just words and photographs.

"I have a better idea. Would you like me to show you?"

Lucius inclined his head and furrowed his eyebrows at this; Astrid nodded reverently.

"Okay, come on then."

Harry stood up and took Astrid's hand, beckoning Lucius to join them before heading to his study. When they arrived, he brought down his pensive, placed it on the solid oak desk, and used his wand to pull a memory from his temple. As he placed it in the carved obsidian bowl Astrid spoke:

"What's that?"

"It's a memory of your Papa, just a memory, he won't see us or hear us, all we can do is watch, okay?"

Astrid nodded with bright eyes, grateful enough that her father thought her mature enough to share this experience.

"Okay, it's going to feel a bit like falling when we go in, but don't worry, I've got you." He turned to Lucius, "Do you want to come?"

"Are you sure about this?"

Harry smiled and held out his spare hand. Soon they landed in a room filled with every assortment of junk imaginable: Books and broken furniture; socks, swords, skeletons, and much more besides. His memory self was surveying the articles around him without any real interest, scuffing his shoes idly as he paced.

"_I thought you said this was important Malfoy."_

"_It is," _a disembodied voice called, completely lacking in concern.

"Where are we Daddy?"

"This is a very special room in Hogwarts."

"The Room for Requirement?" Lucius asked, and Harry answered with a nod.

"_Well can you get to it at some point in the next millennium? I have a mountain of research to get through."_

A young man swung round from behind a pile of dusty old hats. His blond hair was held back from his face with a royal blue ribbon and his eyes sparkled. Lucius' breath hitched at the sight of him, and Astrid looked on in wonder.

"_It's always work, work, work, with you isn't it, Potter? Even the boy wonder needs a break every once and a while you know..." _He said, snatching up a purple feather boa and throwing it around the younger Harry's neck.

"_Yeah? Tell you what, you have that conversation with Dumbledore for me and let me know how it goes," _the younger Harry retorted, pulling off the boa and throwing it at a pile of books.

"_Oh lighten up Potter, you're no fun," _Draco picked up a mannequin and began to dance it around the room. Astrid giggled, Lucius and both Harrys shook their heads in faint amusement.

"_What exactly do you think you're doing?"_

"_Trying to get you to crack a smile of course. Merlin you're hard work Potter!"_

"_What's up with you today Malfoy, why are you so... Giddy?"_

"_Hey! How do you know I've not always been like this, and you've just been too thick skulled to notice?"_

"_Well, have you?"_

"_Nah, I really was that much of an arse. I guess being around a miserable git like you day in-day out does good things for my disposition. One of us needs to have a sense of humour..."_

"_I don't have time for a sense of humour, Malfoy._

"_Well that's a bit depressing. Look on the bright side for once will you, it's your birthday after all... And, as of today, we're one step closer to winning the war."_

"_Oh? How'd you figure?"_

Draco dropped the mannequin and turned to face his Harry.

"_Ah! __**I,**__" _he paused for dramatic effect,_ "Have a present for you." _With that, he disappeared off behind a pile of battered looking armchairs.

"_Is it Voldemort's head on a pike?"_

"_Nuh-Uh, much better than that."_

The younger Harry spun around as Draco sprung out again from behind him, dressed in a large fur coat, an acid green wig, oversized sunglasses and a pirate's hat. The elder Harry spared a glance at Lucius and wasn't surprised to see his jaw hanging loose. Astrid clapped and grinned from ear to ear.

"_You look ridiculous!"_

"_Coming from you scarface?"_

Draco struck a comical pose, and the younger Harry began to laugh. The laughter grew and grew and became interspersed with wheezing breaths as he bent double, clasping his stomach. Draco's face was painted with victory as he threw off the mismatched items.

"_Oh, thank you," _the younger Harry gasped.

"_What for?" _

"_Wasn't that my present?"_

Draco surveyed him with a look of confusion for a moment, _"Ah, the gift of laughter... If only I'd known you were that easy to please Potter..."_

"_So, what is it?"_

"_Close your eyes," _Draco ordered, disappearing into the folds of the room once more.

"_Are you going to Hex me?"_

"_I'm hurt -crushed- that you could think that of me," _came the dramatic reply_. "Are they closed?"_

"_Yes."_

Draco appeared again, and held a battered looking tiara out to his Harry,_ "You can look now."_

"_Um," _Harry looked at it awkwardly,_ "it's really not my style Malfoy..."_

"_Oh No? Look closer."_

Something dawned on the younger Harry's face_ "Is this- It can't be- Is it?"_

"_Yup."_

"What was it?" Lucius asked the elder Harry quietly, as the younger Harry gaped in shock, unable to form words.

"It was Ravenclaw's Lost Diadem, it was also a Horcrux."

Lucius turned back to his son and raised an impressed eyebrow.

"Did you like your birthday present Daddy?"

"Oh yes darling, definitely."

"_I can't believe this, you- I mean, how?" _The younger Harry eventually spluttered.

Draco stepped back and gave a sweeping bow,_ "I live to serve_." Straightening up, satisfied with Harry's reaction, he added,_ "Night then." _He made to move past the younger Harry, but the man grabbed his arm and stared at him with an unreadable expression, until Draco started to feel uncomfortable and swallowed deliberately, preparing to break the odd silence.

The younger Harry sensed this and decisively leaned in, kissing him soundly. The elder Harry wore a bittersweet smile as he looked on. Lucius touched his arm, silently reaffirming his support if it was needed. Astrid scrunched up her nose, because kissing was actually quite gross, and why grown-ups thought otherwise was beyond her.

"_What was that for?"_

"_You're amazing Draco."_

"_Happy Birthday Harry."_

* * *

><p>"Wake up sleepyhead."<p>

Ron groaned and rolled onto his other side.

"Ro-on?" The same sing-song voice came again.

His eyes flew open and he reached under his pillow for his wand.

"Looking for this hun?"

He sat up to find Asha sitting at the foot of his bed, twirling his wand between her fingers.

"What the hell are you doing in my flat!"

"Trying to wake you up, what does it look like?" She flashed him a cheeky grin.

"How did you get in here?"

"It's a gift," she replied. At Ron's incredulous stare she decided to elaborate, "Wizards can apparate, can't they? It's kind of like that."

"To apparate you need to know where you're going."

She smiled indulgently at him and placed his wand in his outstretched hand, "I just need to know who I'm going to."

Ron repositioned himself, ensuring as he did that the duvet covered everything below the waist.

"So, is there a reason you're here or was it just to scare the living daylights out of me?"

She pursed her lips, "Draco is becoming unbearable."

"Why does that not surprise me?" Ron rolled his eyes but she ignored him.

"He's been wandering around like a bear with a sore head since for a week now. He wants to see you."

"He said that did he?"

"Maybe not in so many words. But I know your absence is making him nervous. Are you avoiding him for a reason?"

"I'm not avoiding him, I-" He found himself flustered in this woman's presence, "I just needed some time to get my head around everything. Keeping his secret puts me in a really difficult position you know."

"But you **will** keep it?"

"I said I would, didn't I?"

"Fine, but the longer you stay away the less he believes it, and it's turning him into a right bastard."

"Draco, a right bastard? Never," Ron said sardonically.

"Come for dinner tonight?"

Ron nodded and felt a tingle in his spine as she threw her arms around him.

"Thank you!" She squeaked.

There was a loud knock at the door, Ron wriggled out of Asha's hug and scrambled to pull a pair of jeans on over the boxers he'd slept in.

"I'll be right there!" He called through the flat to whoever stood on the other side of his front door.

"Calm down Ron, you'll give yourself a heart attack," Asha said sweetly.

He hopped through the flat trying to pull his left sock on and eventually reached the door to open it.

"Hey Ron, sorry, did I wake you?" Harry said.

Ron looked down and realised that he was still topless, "I, Uh-"

"Don't worry, you didn't," Asha answered for him, her eyes twinkling as she wandered out of Ron's bedroom towards him. When she reached his side, she kissed him slowly and deliberately on the cheek. As she pulled away she ran her hand down his arm and took a step backwards, "I'll see you later Ron." She turned to the door and winked at the wide-eyed brunette man standing in her way. Harry moved to the side to let her pass and gawped at his friend.

"Who on earth was _that_?"

Ron ran his fingers through his hair awkwardly and felt this face heat up, "Just a girl," he answered.

Harry laughed, "You old dog! Go finish getting dressed, I'm taking you out to lunch. And then you can tell me all about _'Just a Girl'_."

* * *

><p>"So, tell me about this girl," Harry asked playfully.<p>

Ron frowned into his plate of pasta, "Just leave it Harry," he said.

"Are you alright? You seem... Off. Is something on your mind?"

"It's nothing."

"It's not nothing. Talk to me Ron, I'm your best friend, I want to help."

"Harry, what would you do if someone kept something from you? Something big. I mean something really fucking big. And they knew damn well that it would hurt you but they did it anyway."

"Is this about Hermione?"

"No, it's not. But just- What would you do?" Ron was getting impatient.

"Because I know that you're doing your best to keep me out of your squabbles but to be honest-"

"Harry!"

"Okay, okay. I guess..." Harry shoved a forkful of food into his mouth, "It would depend on why they'd kept it from me," he finished with his mouth full.

"So you wouldn't rip their throat out then?" Ron asked darkly.

Harry shrugged, "Like I said, it would depend. Sometimes people make bad decisions for good reasons."

"Why is it that you don't have a bloody halo or something?"

Harry grinned, "I do, can't you see it?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Review, review! What did you like? What did you hate?**

**I'm gonna have to go over this tomorrow morning when my eyes can focus again, I'm sure there must be typos in there that I'm not seeing...  
><strong>

**x X x  
><strong>

**'Rora**


	5. Stained Glass

**A/N: **

**So work finally calmed down! Yey! I'm sorry for the wait, and that this chapter's not quite as long as the last, but I thought I owed it to all you wonderful patient people to get something out ASAP!  
><strong>

**Warnings: **

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story. **

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and cheese.**

* * *

><p>Draco thumbed one of the small leather-bound books that had been laid out, noting the faded gold leaf and the cracked spine. He didn't bother with the words inside, he wasn't here for them; His focus was drawn instead to the beautiful light dancing from the stained glass windows, and the ceiling that vaulted to breathtaking heights.<p>

Somehow he'd charmed his way through his morning meeting without falling asleep or drawing attention to the screaming pain that laced his back. He'd even held his own during a rather heated confrontation with Danny. And now he was back in this place, trying to make sense of himself again.

A young minister calmly took up a seat in the pew in front of Draco and rested his head upon his clasped hands. Eventually he spoke, inclining his head but not far enough to look directly at the blond. "You looked troubled."

"Isn't everyone?" Draco gave a short, bitter laugh before collecting himself. "It's funny, I used to come here _all_ the time, and it's been years, but it hasn't changed at all."

"What brings you back now?"

Draco drew his eyes upwards to the ceiling, "I like it here, it makes me feel... small."

"It is humbling to be in the presence of god," the Minister agreed, turning to look at him.

"I don't know if I believe in god as such," Draco confessed to his hands.

"No?"

The lack of accusation in the Minister's tone encouraged Draco to speak plainly, "If there is a god, why would he bestow money, power, friendship, anything, on someone like me?"

"You don't feel that you should have these things?"

"No, I don't," Draco stated with resigned confidence.

The Minister pressed on, "Did you gain them dishonestly?"

"No, but," Draco swallowed, "There are... other things I've done."

"No man is perfect; those who seek forgiveness will be forgiven."

Again came that harsh laugh, "Why can't anyone understand that I don't want to be forgiven!" Draco snarled, "I deserve to be punished!"

"Why?" The Minister asked quietly.

Draco threw up his hands, "Because I've betrayed him, I betrayed the man I love, and I'll never be able to take it back!" He turned to look directly into the eyes of his questioner, "Yes, I _did_ say man! No, it's _not_ catching!"

The Minister simply studied him with a neutral expression.

"I should go now," Draco whispered, standing to leave.

"I won't keep you here against your will, but if you're leaving because you think I have a problem with you being gay-"

"Well don't you?" Draco accused.

"Not particularly, we're all human aren't we?"

Draco let his mouth hang open, stared straight ahead, and said nothing as he retook his seat.

"So... Have you been unfaithful?"

"Yes," Draco breathed.

"And you feel remorse?"

"I feel eaten alive by guilt. I hate myself for what I've done. And then I remember that I'm not the one who ran off and got myself killed. How can I be held accountable to a promise I made in the throes of grief? Keeping myself for him was tearing me apart."

"You can't."

"What?" Draco jerked his head up.

"You can't hold yourself to something like that. Life is a precious thing, and like it or not, you still have yours to live. You might not want to be forgiven, but you need to forgive yourself, otherwise you'll waste the greatest gift you've ever been given."

"I know that, that's why I left, so that I could live."

"So let go of your guilt and do that. You don't strike me as the sort of person that does things by halves."

Draco said nothing, his eyes and throat closed; it took all of his will to hold in the tears that threatened to escape.

* * *

><p>Lucius Malfoy looked up over his reading glasses and smiled, "You're home early."<p>

Harry crossed the drawing room and dumped his jacket on the arm of a chair. Taking a seat he answered, "Yeah, Ron was in an odd sort of mood. I asked if he wanted to join us for dinner but he said he had plans."

"Fair enough," Lucius replied.

"He had a girl in his flat when I got there," Harry grinned, "Looks like he's finally moving on from Hermione..."

"Merlin knows it's taken him long enough!"

They sat in comfortable silence for a while, Lucius occasionally turning the pages of his book, Harry mulling over the Daily Prophet's crossword.

"I know I've already said this," Lucius put down his book, "But thank you for showing us that memory. I don't think I've ever seen my son that happy."

Harry smiled, "It's how I like to remember him."

"That was your first kiss wasn't it?"

Harry averted his eyes and felt his neck and face heat up. "It was, yes."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."

"No it's- You're not prying. I've never spoken to anyone about that night. If someone had told me all those years ago that I'd be talking to _you_ about it I'd have hexed them," Harry laughed to himself, picking at the loose threads on the arm of his chair.

"Don't worry, I'm not about to get graphic. But he told me that he loved me that night. I thought he was cracked, I really did, because I could tell he wasn't talking about the Hero that everyone else saw, he was talking about me as a person, and I really didn't know how anyone could love that person."

Lucius studied his son-in-law but said nothing, afraid to disrupt Harry's concentration.

"In the end I didn't handle it very well. I shut him out completely. I didn't want anyone to feel that way about me; I didn't want to owe anyone anything when I knew I had to give every part of myself to the war."

"You never should have had to carry that burden-"

"No, but I did," Harry stopped him. "You know, I kept waiting for him to give up on me, but he never did, not even when I lost our first child. I couldn't understand why he didn't hate me for that. I wanted him to. I hated myself, for a long time. I couldn't even bring myself to tell him to his face; in the end Severus lost his rag with me and told him himself."

Lucius' thoughts spun, "I didn't know."

"Neither did we until it was too late."

"I'm sorry."

Harry shrugged off the apology, "It was a long time ago, and I made my peace with it before I died. War takes lives. In the end, it was Draco that helped me to understand that it wasn't my fault."

"There wouldn't have been a war if it weren't for people like me," Lucius bit back.

"No, there wouldn't have been," Harry said plainly. "Thank you Lucius."

"What?"

"Thank you for not being that man anymore."

* * *

><p>"Oh, it's you," Draco blanched.<p>

Ron stood on the doormat in a reasonably nice shirt and tie combination, bottle of wine in hand, "Asha didn't tell you I was coming did she?" He grimaced.

"No," Draco said slowly, "But, it's her birthday, I guess she can invite whoever she wants... By the way, I'm going to pretend that I'm oblivious to the fact that you quite obviously employed some kind of magic to circumvent the buzzer downstairs. Don't do that next time."

Ron turned scarlet, "Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't think. Wait, it's her birthday?"

"Wishing you'd brought more than just a bottle of wine aren't you?" Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Uh-" the redhead was at a loss for what to say.

"Oh relax, you saved her life, I think you're fine."

Ron hesitated at the words of encouragement, "I guess," he said, putting his hands in his pockets and biting his lip.

An awkward silence etched its way between them until Draco sighed and held the door open, "I suppose you should come in then."

Draco led the way down the stairs into an open plan space filled with mismatched furniture. The walls were lined with artwork and the evening sunlight fell through huge windows to dance through the glass sculptures that adorned every available surface.

Ron took it all in with a deep breath, "This place is beautiful."

"We try our best," Draco shrugged and perched himself on the back of a couch. "I never said thanks - for saving her that is - thank you."

"Oh, uh, it's nothing, it's what I do."

"Well, not to sound disinterested, but I'd rather not get into the life and times of the modern day Auror. Regardless of whether it's your job, I'm grateful, so is Richard. And I'm glad you're here because we talked about it, and we wrote you this," he fished a small piece of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Ron. "It's from his account but it's from both of us. Gringotts should be able to cash it, unless they've changed their policy, which I guess is quite possible given how long it's been. Let us know if you run into any problems."

"Draco, you don't have to do that, I mean 100,000 pounds, I have no idea how much that is, but I'm pretty sure it's _too_ much, I can't take this."

"It's a little over 20,000 galleons, and it's not nearly enough, take it."

"Draco I could buy a house with this."

"So buy a house."

"Can you even afford this?"

"I wouldn't be giving you it if I couldn't."

"But-"

Draco cut off the protest with a stern look, "I'm not going to back down on this one Ron, and neither will Richard, so stop arguing and just take it."

"Okay."

A strange buzzing rang out through the apartment just then and Draco strode over to a small white box on the wall. He pressed a button there that made the buzzing stop, and spoke to it.

"Who is it?"

"Hey hey, is that you Matt?"

"Cal?"

"Yup. Let me up will you darling, it's a brass monkeys situation out here."

"The front door's open," Draco replied, pressing another button to grant the man entry to the building.

He swung round to face Ron once more, "Ground rules: No magic. I don't want to see it, I don't want to hear about it, and don't call me Draco in front of anyone but Richard and Asha, you'll confuse people."

"Okay," Ron nodded slowly, "What did he mean 'it's a brass monkeys situation'?"

"As in: it's cold enough to freeze the balls off a..."

"Er, right."

"Home sweet home!" A disembodied voice called out from the top of the stairs. Draco rolled his eyes.

"Not that I'm not glad to see you Cal, but I thought you were in China or something?"

A man of Ron's height but slimmer build descended the stairs, his rusty blond hair fell into his eyes, which had the same jade colouring as his sister's. "Hong Kong to be exact. But you didn't think I'd miss my little sister's birthday did you?"

"You did last year," Draco smirked.

"The less said about that the better. Well, don't I get a hug?" Cal asked, dropping his rucksack to the ground and holding his arms open.

Ron thought their embrace lasted too long, and he didn't appreciate the look Cal gave his old friend as they began to pull apart.

Draco swallowed, Ron thought he looked uncomfortable, "You look good Cal."

"You do too," Cal smiled, "Who's this guy?" He jerked his head, not taking his eyes from Draco's.

"_This_ is Ron," Draco pointed with his thumb, pulling himself away to sit in an overstuffed purple armchair, and looking like he trying to fight through a confundus charm.

"Ah, the hero of the hour!" Cal announced dramatically, taking Ron's hand and shaking it firmly.

"Sorry?"

"You saved my little sister man, that makes you a hero in my book."

"Oh, _that_, it was nothing." Ron waved him off.

"So modest! Matt isn't he modest?"

"He is indeed. I assume you want a cup of tea?"

"You know me too well, I'd adore one!"

Draco padded over to the kitchen area and began to potter about with cups and kettles and the like, while Cal and Ron trailed behind him, taking up seats at the breakfast counter.

"So what were you doing in Hong Kong?" Ron asked Cal, feeling he ought to break the silence.

"The usual, seeing the sights, soaking up the culture, I travel around a lot," his eye's flicked over to Draco, "So how've you been Matt? Richard said-"

"Oh you know me, plodding along," Draco replied before Cal was able to finish. He didn't turn around, but both of the other men could hear the tension in his voice.

"Uh huh," Call nodded, "Kicked Danny to the curb yet?

"Cal," Draco replied in a warning tone.

"What, I'm just asking. The guy's an arse Matt."

"I'm well aware of that. And yes, I broke it off, happy?"

"Ecstatically," Cal grinned.

Draco shook his head as he busied himself with pouring out the freshly boiled water.

"So," Cal changed the subject, "Hong Kong was amazing! Ooh, I met a guy actually, an English guy."

"Not surprising, there are a fair few of them in Hong Kong," Draco sighed, holding the sugar jar up to Ron and receiving three fingers in response.

"This one was gorgeous. Tall, dark, handsome, and so completely adorable."

"High praise," Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Oh shush you. So get this: he's been travelling all over the world trying to find the love of his life!"

Ron froze but neither Draco nor Cal took any notice.

"Wouldn't it be easier just to go to a bar?" Draco mused.

"No, you don't understand. He lost him and he's trying to find him again, to tell him that he loves him and beg him to come home. Isn't that romantic?"

"It's certainly something."

"Oh come on, even you have to appreciate that. All over the world Matt, I mean this guy's been everywhere. Chicago to Calcutta, Rotterdam to Rhodes, everywhere."

Draco just shrugged and handed them their respective cups of tea.

"Ron, back me up here, isn't that completely amazing?"

"Yeah, I reckon it is. Did you happen to catch this guy's name?"

"Oh, crap, I can't remember actually, he did tell me, but..." Cal scratched his head, "It'll come to me, I'm sure," he turned his attention back to Draco, and stared at him openly, as if waiting for a delayed reaction.

"Matt, I swear you have a heart of stone."

"Yup."

Draco began to pull together the ingredients he needed to make dinner; Cal shook his head and drank his tea; Ron forgot all about his own cup, unsettled by the conversation and Draco's reaction to it.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**If you liked it, please review.  
><strong>

**If you didn't like it, review and tell me so I can fix it!  
><strong>

**Love love love,  
><strong>

**x X x  
><strong>

**'Rora**


	6. Friends

**A/N:**

**Chapter 6! Yey! Thank you as ever to everyone who reviewed or PM'd, I'm fairly certain I replied to everyone who didn't have PM disabled. If I missed you it wasn't intentional so haul me up on it for goodness sake **

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and vanilla lattes.**

* * *

><p>Ron helped himself to a few more tortilla chips and surveyed the room from a quiet spot beneath a fairly impressive glass chandelier, couples danced around the furniture, and clusters of people chattered away. Draco had been in deep discussion with an older gentleman - who looked somewhat out of place in the crowd of twenty somethings - for the past half an hour. As he watched from across the room, intrigued, he failed to notice that he was being cornered by Richard until it had happened.<p>

"So, did Draco talk to you about Asha?"

"Yeah, he did," Ron started, "But look I can't-"

"Nonsense, do something useful with it," Richard leaned in and dropped his voice to a scandalous whisper, "Besides, Draco can burn money like nobody's business, save him from himself," he winked. "Actually, it was Draco I wanted to talk to you about."

There was something in that tone that made Ron decidedly nervous, "Oh?"

Richard nodded, "Look, this is probably going to sound quick dickish, especially given what you've just done for Asha, but it needs to be said."

"Okay..." Ron said slowly, still not liking where this was heading.

Richard cleared his throat looked Ron directly in the eye, "Hurt him and I'll break you," he said simply, as though ordering a side salad in an upmarket restaurant.

"Excuse me?"

"He doesn't trust you right now, but I can see he wants to," Richard seemed to appraise him for a moment before continuing, "You must have been a pretty damn good friend to him in his old life, because he's not known for giving people the benefit of the doubt.

"You know, we had a plan for this eventuality – Draco being found that is. It was to leave, immediately. Me, him, and Asha were to disappear into the ether. We were thinking Australia," he mused, "I've never met a real, live kangaroo..."

The last line had been delivered with a comical edge, and Ron wasn't entirely sure if they were still holding a serious discussion until Richard's eyes hardened once again: "But instead he begged you to keep his secret. The fact that he _wanted_ to stay, in spite of the turmoil you showing up has put him through this past week, says to me that he wants to rebuild whatever friendship he used to have with you. Do _you_ want that?"

"Yes," Ron hesitated, "But I'm not so sure _he_ does. He didn't look too pleased to see me earlier."

Richard shook his head, "I know Draco, if he didn't want you here he wouldn't have let you through the front door, regardless of whose birthday it was.

"I've seen firsthand the damage that being around magic or being confronted with his past does to him," he continued darkly, "But he's my brother - part of my family - so, if he thinks he can handle you being in his life then I'll defer to that. Like I said though, if you hurt him, I'll break you. I may be a muggle, but magic isn't everything. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

"Good, good," Richard patted him on the shoulder, "Can I get you a drink?"

* * *

><p>Long after the party had dispersed Draco crept through the flat in the dull light of early morning, avoiding the crumbs of spilled food and empty bottles, paying silent thanks to the god of fluffy socks for keeping his toes from falling off: <em>'Damn it's cold'.<em>

"Is that you darling?" Cal's whisper reached him.

"It depends which darling you're looking for Cal."

"Why, the fairest of them all, of course."

"Oh, in that case I'll go wake Richard," Draco teased, stepping out from behind a pillar to greet his friend.

"You didn't have to get up to say goodbye."

"I wanted to," Draco shrugged. "So, where to this time?"

"I'm thinking Venice."

Draco slumped back against the pillar and sighed wistfully, "I love Venice, it's beautiful."

"Come with me," Cal cast a sideways grin and raised his eyebrow, already guessing the answer.

"You know I can't," Draco smiled back.

"Yeah, I know..." Cal seemed to consider his friend for a moment, "Are you sure you're okay? With this Ron bloke showing back up in your life, that is. Richard said you've had a rough week."

Draco nodded slowly, "I was quite freaked out, old memories being stirred up and stuff, old guilt."

Cal had to laugh at this, "I thought you didn't do guilt?"

"Maybe I've been kidding myself," Draco said, rolling his eyes as he took Cal's offered hands and stepped forwards toward him, "But, yeah, I think I'm okay. I can't be completely evil, I made it inside a church today without being struck down by lightning."

"It's a lie," Call smirked.

"Yeah, must be, huh?" Draco pulled closer as he returned that smirk.

"Well, I guess I'd better be off then..." Cal's face took on a conflicted stance, he seemed to hesitate for the briefest moment before placing a soft kiss on Draco's lips. Brave from the lack of opposition, he kissed him properly and rested their foreheads together. "That's the first time you've let me kiss you in a long time."

"Just, don't read too much into it, okay?" Draco asked with his eyes as much as with his words.

"You know I wont... I'm not going to hand you the world on a plate Matt, not unless you ask me to. I don't ever want you to feel like you owe me something that you can't give me. If you ever get to the point where you want to give us another shot, you know I'm game, but I don't expect that from you. All I want you to think about is what makes you happy."

Draco lowered his eyes, "You're sweet."

"Too sweet for my own good, so I'm told."

"Maybe," Draco whispered.

An hour later, lying in his bed, Draco found he couldn't sleep. Instead, he fixated on old memories: The day he first met Cal, the night they first kissed. Their first, second, third, fourth fight. By the time his eyelids finally fluttered shut it was to dreams of men in business attire discussing kidney beans on a beach.

* * *

><p>Ron shuffled from one foot to the other as the goblin scrutinised him. After an age it clicked it's fingers and the cheque became engulfed in purple flame before disappearing altogether.<p>

"Hey-"

"Standard protocol Mr Weasley, the funds should be in your vault in 10 days."

"10 days?" He questioned, and received a stern glare from the goblin for his trouble.

"It will take as long for them to draw down the funds and arrange for them to be exchanged into useable galleons."

Ron jumped and quickly looked around to see Lucius Malfoy standing behind him.

"Oh, Lucius, I didn't see you there."

"I assumed as much. I couldn't help overhearing, a hundred thousand pounds - that's a fair bit of money."

"So I'm told. Don't know what I'm gonna do with it, I tried to give it back but..." Ron trailed off, remembering just whose money he was discussing.

"Someone obviously thinks very highly of you. I recommend property."

"They said that too actually."

"If you need a hand, I'm rather good at these things."

"Thanks, I think I'm gonna sit on it for a while though."

"Very well," Lucius gave a polite nod and stepped forward to greet the now impatient goblin who had previously served Ron.

* * *

><p>Lucius arrived home to find Harry standing in the middle of the entrance hall scratching his head in confusion. "I've lost Astrid," he said by way of explanation.<p>

"I'll help you look," Lucius offered and they began to systematically search the house.

Eventually they found the little blond hovering over a cabinet in the trophy room.

"There you are darling, don't scare me like that."

She smiled a coy apology before turning back to the cabinet she'd been studying, "What's this Daddy?"

Harry and Lucius stepped forward to take a closer look, "It's an order of Merlin honey, they give them to really important witches and wizards," Harry answered.

"Is it yours?"

"No, it's your Papa's. They gave it to him because he was very brave and very clever."

Her fingers traced the glass case, "What did he do Daddy?"

"It's a very long story darling, I'll tell you when you're older, I promise."

"You always say that, please Daddy," she beseeched him, "Please."

Harry sighed, sliding the glass back and carefully lifting the award up from its velvet padding. He took it over to sit on the nearest window seat and beckoned his daughter to sit next to him.

"A very long time ago, there was a very charming young man," he began. "He saw a lot of things that he thought were wrong with our world and he wanted to fix them. His ideas made sense to a lot of people, and they wanted to help him," Harry's eyes flicked to Lucius, "Soon he and his friends set about trying to change things, but it turned out this man really wasn't very nice at all and he started hurting people to get what he wanted."

"Did he loose all his friends?" Astrid asked knowingly.

"No darling, he didn't."

Astrid frowned in confusion, "Why not Daddy? Why would people want to be friends with someone who hurt people?"

"Well, some of his friends were bad people too, and some of them were afraid that he would hurt the people they loved if they tried to leave him."

"Oh." Astrid tried her hardest to understand this. Grownups just didn't make sense to her sometimes.

"But lots of other people fought against him; eventually we found a way to defeat him."

"How Daddy?"

"It's complicated, but I will say we wouldn't have managed it without your Papa."

"Is that why they gave him the Order thingy?"

"No," Harry breathed heavily, "The thing is, once we knew we could defeat the bad man, we wanted to do it straight away. But your Papa wasn't so sure."

"But, why not? Was he friends with the bad man?"

"No. He just worried that something would go wrong, or that people might get hurt."

"Was he worried that you would get hurt Daddy?"

"Yes, more than anything he was very worried about me," Harry briefly cast his mind back to the fateful rant that Draco had given him the night before he died.

"So what did you do Daddy? Did you listen to Papa?"

"No baby, I didn't. I should have. I did defeat the bad man, but I got very very hurt. And while we were all away from Hogwarts, he sent his friends to attack all the people who had taken up shelter there. It looked like everyone was trapped inside, but your Papa had stayed behind, and had been keeping his eye out for trouble. He found a way to get people out to safety. If it weren't for him, hundreds of witches and wizards would have died that night."

"Really?"

Harry nodded, "When you go to Hogwarts, people will try to tell you that your Daddy is a hero, but I'm not. Your Papa is the hero, do you understand?"

It was Astrid's turn to nod, "Yes. But Daddy, how could you leave Papa all alone when he told you it wasn't safe?"

Harry pulled his daughter into a tight hug so she wouldn't see the tears that needed to fall, "I thought I was doing the right thing sweetheart," he whispered.

Harry led Astrid back to her playroom and instructed the house elves to keep a closer eye on her before retiring to his study in the next room. He spent the rest of the afternoon diligently re-grading the papers Professor Fielding had sent him and trying not to dwell on his daughter's assessment of how he'd handled the final showdown with Voldemort. The papers were from the assignment he had set his class before he'd left for Hong Kong; his Co-Professor wasn't supposed to have marked them but she'd gone and done it anyway. Badly, in Harry's opinion. _'Bat Bogey Hex: not viable in battle? Tell that to Ginny,' _he scowled to himself.

When he'd finally gotten through all of them he realised Lucius too had been holed up in his study all afternoon. He made his way down the hall and knocked politely on the door before pushing it ajar.

"Do you want a cup of tea?" He asked.

"No thank you," Lucius didn't look up.

Harry faltered, "Are you angry with me?"

"Why would you think that?" Came the curt reply.

"Your _tone_ for one thing."

Lucius sighed, "One day that girl is going to grow up and learn the truth of the war. What will I be to her then?"

"You'll be her grandfather."

"Don't be facetious."

Harry held up his hands, "I'm not trying to be. I just don't know what else you want me to say."

"She'll look at me and see a monster," Lucius bit.

Harry chewed his lip and avoided his Father-in-Law's gaze.

"Well?"

"Well what? Like I said, I don't know what you want me to say. If someone asked me ten years ago whether you were a monster, I'd have rather emphatically told them yes. I don't understand how the man I've grown to trust, respect, and think of as part of my family could have done the things that you did. If I'm honest, I don't care enough to try to understand, the war is over, I've already given up enough of my life to it, I'm past the point of needing to decipher these things. But if I don't understand, how can you expect me to forecast her reaction for you?" Harry rubbed his temples with one hand, "I really don't know how you're going to explain it to her, but I'll be with you when you do. You're not going to lose her Lucius."

"I lost Draco."

"Well, we'd better hope she's got more Potter genes than Malfoy ones hadn't we?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Review review review! **

**I thrive on the feedback!**

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	7. Human Nature

**A/N:**

**So this chapter I adhered to 3 requests from 3 wonderful readers:  
><strong>

**At the request of Pontythings, we find out more about Draco's friendships/background.  
><strong>

**At the request of thrnbrooke, we give Draco a bit of an accidental hint at the truth he's missing.  
><strong>

**And at the request of Super-Jade (I've decided you should be a superhero, I'm going to make you a cape.) we see a little more of Harry and Draco's relationship, namely from their time in Zanzibar.  
><strong>

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and shawarma.**

* * *

><p>"Oi, oi! Looking a bit worse for wear son!"<p>

Ron squinted his blood-shot eyes around the coffee bar as he shut the door behind him. He was thankful that the dark woods and rich fabrics swallowed the offensive winter sunlight. The place was sprawled in nooks and snugs; various fireplaces were lit and candles seemed to be strewn everywhere, held in beautiful glass artefacts, no two the same. Eventually he spotted them clustered together in a corner near the back and evenly walked in their direction, careful not to upset his pounding head.

Harry had dragged him out the night before in order to celebrate his 'victory' over the infamous Professor Fielding. Apparently, he'd finally succeeded in getting her and his boss off his back over his teaching methods and this meant they both had to consume enough firewhiskey to down a woolly mammoth. To be fair, he hadn't complained much at the time.

He reached the trio and carefully sat down next to Richard.

"Woah, 'worse for wear' was an understatement, you look like death on a stick," he sympathised.

"Just a little fragile," Ron nodded, instantly regretting the action. Draco looked up from the paperwork scattered next to him on the couch where he sat across from them, his eyes creased as he regarded his old friend.

"You want some aspirin or something?" He asked.

"Some what?"

Draco didn't answer him, instead he got to his feet and made his way over to the bar proper. Slinking behind the counter, and around a waitress who was carrying a tray of mugs over to a paying customer, he rummaged through the lower cupboards for a while. When he found what he was apparently after, he poured the contents of the sachet into a glass and topped it up with tap water before making his way back over to the group.

"You haven't taken _anything else_ for that hangover of yours have you?" He enquired of Ron, subtly hinting that he wasn't just asking about standard medicines. When he received a curious shake of the head he handed the glass over. "Drink this."

"This is your 'aspirin'?"

"No actually, I found you something better. Just drink it, it won't kill you, I promise."

The four slipped into a comfortable hum; Richard and Asha discussed their plans for the upcoming week, and Draco leafed through his paperwork, occasionally penning something in the margins. Ron silently marvelled at the sheer lack of tension. It had only been a few weeks, but they'd settled Ron into their lives with a welcoming determination, as though they'd made the decision that he should be there and that was that. Draco was typically less vocal than Richard and Asha when it came to inviting him over for dinner or out for coffee, but he showed his assent in other ways – small nods and kind gestures.

Ron found that the bizarre solution Draco had given to him was actually easing his headache, settling his stomach, and even perking him up slightly. That said, he was glad when the familiar waitress made her way over to their table - a cup of tea was more than called for now that he was feeling a bit more human. When Ron gave her his request Draco looked at him pointedly.

"You need to eat something."

Ron scrunched his nose, not because he wasn't hungry but because he knew he wouldn't be allowed to pay his way. Everything they ordered in this place went straight on the bosses tab, and 'the boss' happened to be Draco. It wasn't a patronising manoeuvre, it was just what they did, and they saw no reason to exclude Ron from their habits. Ron had come to accept this, but still felt awkward about ordering more than they did. He realised Draco was still looking at him, his eyes taking on a stubborn glint.

"Can I have a turkey sandwich?" He asked the waitress who returned a warm smile.

"Can I have a kiss?" Richard tried, Ron had observed that flirting with his friend's staff was a common pastime for him, presumably because he knew it irritated the blond.

Draco rolled his eyes, "Cassie, I know bodily violence against the customers is surmountable to gross misconduct, but I'll turn a blind eye in his case if the need overcomes you, just so you know."

"Thank you Mr Hart, Sir."

Draco raised an eyebrow, "Hey, what have I said about calling me 'Sir'?"

"Ignore him, he's just having difficultly coming to terms with the fact that he's getting old."

"I'm 29 you prat! I'm younger than you are!" He said as he swatted Richard upside the head.

The waitress shook her head at their antics and left them to it.

"That said," Draco continued, "I wish the cold weather wouldn't play up with my joints like this. Now _that _makes me feel old."

"They giving you trouble again sweetheart?" Asha asked, to which he nodded, rubbing his elbow.

"What's wrong with them?" Ron enquired.

"Nothing specific; indiscretions of youth. If the need ever overcomes you to frolic around a forest half-naked for a few weeks, just... Don't," Draco said with a wry smirk.

Ron was startled by the reference, but surely Draco couldn't be talking so flippantly about _that_. From what he'd been told, the state he'd been in when Harry had found him in that forest was far from comical. Ron wondered how much of those weeks Draco remembered and how much of that he chalked up to madness.

"You alright Ron?"

"Yeah," he responded, shaking off his thoughts, "So I've been meaning to ask - how did you guys meet anyway?"

Draco and Asha shared a look and Richard was the first to respond.

"Draco and I met here," Richard gestured around his head to indicate the establishment. "We both used to bus tables for Old Man Henderson, back in the day." Ron suddenly understood why the coffee bar carried the name 'Hendersons'.

"_You_ waited tables?" Ron was incredulous as his eyes searched Draco's face for confirmation.

"A job's a job," Draco shrugged, nodding his thanks to the waitress as she set down their order on the small table between them.

"So," Ron raised his eyebrows and flashed a grin, looking from Draco to Asha, "How did you two meet?"

They gave each other that look again, their discomfort visibly growing by the second. Ron was just about to withdraw the question when Draco sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together. He took in a deep breath and blew it out before committing to his answer and the conversation as a whole.

"Asha was volunteering at the place I was staying a few months after I moved up here," he said carefully.

"Volunteering? Like for work experience? Were you staying in a hotel or something?"

Richard and Asha both looked at Draco, staying silent and allowing him to tell as much or as little of this story as he felt appropriate.

"It wasn't a hotel. I was living in a homeless shelter. I had nothing when I came here Ron."

Ron was shocked at the admission. The life of privilege that the three friends had welcomed him into suited Draco so perfectly, and in financial terms transcended so seamlessly from his old life as the sole heir to the Malfoy fortune, that he'd never thought to question if it had always been this way. Thinking about it now he realised just how absurd that assumption had been. Of _course_ Draco hadn't just landed in this position, he'd been a wreck when he'd left the manor, and according to Harry wasn't fairing much better when he'd disappeared from Zanzibar.

"How did you..." Ron trailed off, looking around, unsure how to phrase what he was asking.

"Hard work, good friends, and luck," Draco offered him a small smile, silently reassuring him that he was okay, and that it was okay to ask these questions.

Ron had learned quickly these past few weeks that if Draco didn't want to discuss something then he simply wouldn't, no arguments, no anger, just dismissal of the topic. Any glimmer of anything else and he was willing to part with the information, according to Richard. Apparently it was just a matter of how to draw it out, something that Richard in particular seemed to be an expert at. Ron hadn't quite developed the knack, he had a feeling he may never, but today Draco was making it easy for him.

"What was it like?" Ron nearly whispered.

Draco, to his credit, held his gaze. "It was... Volatile, restless. I wasn't very well; I was in and out of hospital, and being bounced around different shelters in between... And sometimes there was no shelter, sometimes instead there was... The floor of some vague acquaintance's hallway, or an abandoned warehouse. Sometimes there wasn't even that, and sometimes it was safer that way.

"I didn't have money. My clothes were second hand, and there were times when I forgot what it was to feel clean. I was terrified most days, I saw things that appalled me - the worst side of human nature - but I had my own mind again, and for me that was a step in the right direction."

Ron was horrified at what he was hearing and he didn't bother to hide his creased brow or his slack jaw. His tongue didn't seem to be able to form the right words. He felt indecent, like he'd pried into something that he should have left alone, but Draco didn't seem embarrassed the way Ron was sure he would have once been, he simply studied Ron as he grappled with the new information.

How could Draco have lived like this? He felt a desperate spurt of protectiveness for his friend: for the memory of the arrogant bastard that had tortured him through school, for the man who'd casually strolled into the war effort and proven himself more heroic than the rest of them put together, and for the wretch that had broken in the aftermath of Harry's death. It wasn't right - that's all he could really process - it wasn't _right_.

"It's okay," Draco tried to placate him.

"It's not-"

"But it is," Draco said in a tone that while soft, would not be argued with. To Ron's surprise he laughed then, "I grew up with a fucking diamond encrusted spoon in my mouth Ron. Nobody ever expected me to put in an honest day's work to earn the life I was supposed to lead. But I'm my own man now. I broke my back to get to where I am today, and I'm glad. I'm proud. And where I've been isn't something I'm ashamed of or that I want anyone to pity, okay?"

Ron blinked. _'And people wonder why Harry loves you?' _

When Ron said nothing Draco continued, "So Asha was my angel. She took me under her wing. Over time she gave me back my confidence, and when I was ready she helped me find a steady job. The three of us have been inseparable ever since," Draco smiled at Richard and Asha in turn before inclining his head back to face Ron.

"You're amazing Draco."

Draco started slightly, wrapping around the words.

"I've heard that," he nodded slowly, giving a weak smile. "Now eat your damn sandwich before you keel over."

Ron snapped out of his melancholy and did as he was told, while Draco gathered up his paperwork and took it through a staff door to file away.

"You're a really good influence on him you know," Richard said.

"Whadoumeen?" Ron replied with a mouth full of turkey and lettuce.

"Can't you see the effect you have on him? I've never seen him talk so frankly about that."

Ron mulled this over as he sipped his tea, only looking up when Draco flumped back down on the couch across from him.

"Are you okay sweetie, you look a bit flushed," Asha asked.

Draco's eyes and cheeks did look a bit red, but he brushed it off, "Took the stairs two at a time, bit out of breath is all."

"Excuse me," the four of them turned to see a woman in her forties with auburn hair approaching them, "The girl behind the bar said that you were the proprietor?"

"That's right," Draco said, curious as to her intentions.

In her hand she held up one of the many glass candle holders that littered the tables around them, presumably that from her own table, "I run the craft shop down the street. These pieces are gorgeous, I just know they'd sell, could you perhaps give me the name of your supplier?"

Draco shook his head in an almost practiced fashion, as though he'd had this conversation countless times before, "There is no supplier. I made those."

"You-" She gasped, "Well they're just beautiful, would you consider-"

"I'm sorry, they're not for sale, and I don't make pieces to order or work for commission."

"I'd be willing to pay a very fair-"

"I'm sure you would good lady, but I just can't do it, it wouldn't be right, I'm sorry." His kind eyes softened the blow and she retreated amicably.

"Draco did you really-"

"Yes."

"All of them?"

"Yes," his voice growing bored.

"And the ones at your flat?"

Richard interrupted, "I'm going to cut this short before he hits you: Assume anything made of coloured glass that you've seen within 10 foot of Draco was made by him."

"What can I say, I'm a man of many talents," Draco added, examining his nails.

The four milled away the rest of the afternoon curled up in their respective armchairs or couches, Draco making the odd phone call, and all of them generally joking around. Draco's twisted sense of humour, legendary toward the end of the war, had resurfaced with a vengeance in this new life of his and the only person who could match the speed of his wit was Richard. The pair frequently drove both Ron and Asha to stitches of laughter; often during these moments she'd catch Ron's eye with a sideways glance and a bright grin, and each time he felt a displaced thrill in the pit of his stomach.

Closing time came and went, Draco sent Cassie home after she'd cashed up and assured her that he still remembered how to close up the shop, even if he did spend his time 'swanning around waving paperwork at people' these days. Richard headed off shortly afterward with some vague explanation about an errand he needed to run. Asha discretely walked Ron out through the staff door. She opened and closed the fire exit to give the impression that he had left, and in doing so gave him the privacy he needed to apparate directly home rather than having to walk over to the city's wizarding quarter.

Draco chose to remain ignorant to this. He and Asha had an established line in the sand when it came to magic: she didn't flaunt it, and he didn't pry. It was an approach that Cal, and now Ron, had been swift to adapt to, and this suited Draco perfectly; He knew magic existed, he just didn't want any part of his life clouded by it.

As he began to blow out the last of the candles, he spotted a brown leather wallet discarded on the floor. He picked it up and opened it, hoping to find a clue as to who it belonged to. His eyes were immediately drawn to the weathered photograph fixed inside. He watched as Harry and Ron cajoled each other, ruffling each other's hair and making faces at the camera. Faded as it was, Draco couldn't even make out Harry's infamous scar and as the face turned to look directly at him his heart dropped, pulling down with it memories he'd long since discarded as false.

"_What are you thinking?" Harry cocked his head to one side, intrigue glittering through his eyes. _

_Draco took in the sight of Harry wrapped up to the chest in a crisp white sheet and leant forward to brush the loose strands of hair from his now unblemished forehead with both hands. He clasped his fingers together at the nape of Harry's neck and let his gaze settle on Harry's bottom lip._

"_I was supposed to save you, you ended up saving me," Draco said softly, stroking his thumbs over Harry's cheekbones and flicking his eyes back up to meet the green pair inches from his own._

_Harry reached up and traced the back of his hand down from just beneath Draco's ear to tangle in the chain around his neck, finding with his fingers more than his eyes the ring he'd given Draco three long years ago and caressing it between his thumb and his forefinger._

"_I think we saved each other," Harry whispered._

_Draco closed his eyes and brought his nose to settle next to Harry's. For a moment he just breathed in the words until an ache escaped from his chest and his teeth sought out Harry's bottom lip of their own accord._

Draco snapped the wallet shut and slowly came back to himself. He stretched his eyes wide and bit his lips together firmly, dragging a fingernail over the bottom rim of one eye as if to convince it that it was merely responding to a speck of grit.

"Draco... DRACO!"

"What?" He jerked around to the direction of Asha's voice.

"You were miles away, what's up?"

"Nothing, brain switched off for a second. Ron left his wallet," he said as he held it up.

A loud knock came from the back door.

"That's probably him, I'll get it."

Asha slipped back through the staff door and laughed as she saw Ron standing next to the fire door preparing to knock on the inside of it again.

"I feel ridiculous," he said, "But I couldn't very well apparate outside, someone might have seen, and I couldn't just walk through because this bloody door doesn't open from the outside and he'd know I'd apparated in, so I-" Asha found the babbling amusing and kissed him on the cheek, which to her disappointment silenced him.

"You forgot your wallet," she said, holding the staff door open for him to follow her back through.

"I know, it's why I-" he stopped short when he saw Draco holding the offending item out to him.

"Thought you'd be back," Draco smiled, but Ron noticed that it didn't quite reach his eyes, "I hope you don't mind that I looked inside, was looking for a name, I promise I didn't nick anything."

Ron blanched, "Uh, that's fine," he said. His brain was running four hundred calculations per second.

"It's a good picture, bit faded, but then I guess that's to be expected," Draco said quietly.

Ron studied him in concern as he took the wallet back and hid it away in his back pocket, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Ron felt the response was far too curt to be believed, "Anyway, I need to get this place locked up for the night. I'll see you soon, yeah?"

Ron reluctantly accepted the polite dismissal and made his goodbyes for the second time that evening.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**So, I hope you all enjoyed that, let me know what you thought and be honest :)  
><strong>

**x X x  
><strong>

**'Rora  
><strong>


	8. Mundane Corners

**A/N:**

**Gah! I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get this to you! I honestly didn't realise how much time had passed until Sunday and I felt so bad! Please forgive me?**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and ice cold beer.**

* * *

><p>"<em>I wondered how long it would take for you to show up here," Draco picked at the grass beside his knee and didn't look up at the intruder.<em>

_Harry dropped down to sit by his side, "You've been waiting for me?" _

"_Not really, but you've been on my mind so much lately... I figured it was only a matter of time before you showed up in my dreams."_

_Harry shifted his position slightly and cocked his head to the side, "How do you know this is a dream?"_

_Draco lifted his gaze to look out over the river. "I make a point of knowing these days," he said, holding up his wrist to indicate a string of mottled blue beads._

"_Pretty." Harry smiled to hide his uncertainty, searching his husband's face for some explanation of this unusual behaviour._

"_It's just cheap tat, I found it in the street one day, I never wear it in the real world, it lives on my bedside cabinet."_

_Harry nodded, comprehension settling over him. "So," he ducked his head and looked up playfully from under his eyelids, "if you're dreaming, then I'm dreaming too? With you?" He asked, looking around at the world of green and blue before stretching his arms out in front of him as if to confirm the idea to himself._

"_No, you're dead. This is all just in my head. "_

_Harry slouched: Well that didn't make any sense. "I don't _feel_ dead," he frowned. Draco gave him a bland look before averting his eyes in favour of studying the water once more._

_Silence wrapped around Draco like a shield while Harry looked on in frustration and doubt._

"_When are you coming home?" He asked, reaching out to run his fingers through the hair around Draco's ear._

"_I'm not, don't do that," Draco twisted himself out of reach._

"_Why not?"_

"_Because it hurts," Draco scowled, "And not in a good way. Don't come back here." _

Harry woke to the morning filmed in sweat, Draco's final words stabbing at his eyes as he fumbled to make sense of the dream turned nightmare.

* * *

><p>Ron absently placed his forearms on the table in front of him before jerking them away again. With an expression of some disgust he brushed his sleeves down, lip curling at the sticky residue he'd picked up from the mistake.<p>

Richard ran one finger along the surface of the same table and winced at the black grime that came away. "So, what are we doing here exactly?" He asked his friend.

"Market research of course." Draco said, "What do you gentlemen make of this fine establishment?"

"It's a dump," Ron observed.

"True, not exactly what I'd call constructive though. What do you think of the _location_?"

Richard peered out of the window and shrugged, "It's pretty decent for a dump. Am I right in thinking that you're considering buying this place?"

"What would you think if I were?"

"How much will it cost to refit?"

"Not as much as you'd think, it's mostly aesthetic. The structure is sound, the bar and the floors are in good nick. Bit of rewiring needed, but the plumbing's workable."

Ron soon became lost in a fast-paced exchange of figures and timeframes until finally Richard raised his eyebrows and folded him arms.

"You've done your homework," he said.

"Of course I have."

Richard leaned forward and pulled up the sleeve of Draco's T-Shirt, where a circle of dark purple teeth marks crowned his shoulder joint.

Draco swatted him away, "Well?"

"Well apparently you're not just sexually frustrated, so why are you in project mode?"

Draco did his best not to get irritated by Ron's green expression in the face of that comment.

"I just need a new challenge I guess; The Henderson Group takes care of itself, and the pub has settled into its own rhythm now, so..."

"What pub?" Ron Interjected.

"My Pub."

"I didn't know you owned a pub."

"It's on the other side of the city, he bought it last year, it's called The Dragon's Hart."

"It brings in good money now," Draco pressed.

"It wasn't in nearly as bad a state as this is Draco."

"It wasn't in nearly as good a location either. What do you think Ron?"

"I don't know Draco, I know nothing about running a business."

"Neither does this guy, as much as he'd like to think otherwise," Draco's lips curled into an almost flirtatious smirk as jerked his thumb towards Richard, "but I still trust his opinion."

Ron nodded slowly, "I think... you're pretty stubborn when you set your mind on something."

"He's right you know," Richard agreed.

"Is that a unanimous vote of approval?"

"I think that's stretching it a bit."

"Good good. I closed on the sale this morning," Draco clapped his hands together and merely raised an eyebrow at the disbelieving faces of his friends.

"Bloody nutter," muttered Richard.

"Beautiful nutter you mean," Draco corrected.

* * *

><p>Lucius peered over his reading glasses at Harry as he stepped into the drawing room and dumped his bag on the nearest chair, "So Ron joined me for lunch at Hogwarts today."<p>

"How is he keeping?" Lucius asked, placing his glasses on the spindle-legged table to his side.

"He's still acting odd, didn't stay long, said he had to get back to work." Harry seated himself and proceeded to pull off his shoes, rubbing his socked feet once he had. "Apparently I'm not the only one who's picked up on his behaviour."

"Oh?"

"Arthur caught up with me later on. He's worried too. It seems Ron's taken a leave of absence from work."

"I don't see why that worries him, it's not like he can't afford it," Lucius mused.

Harry puckered his brow at this, "What are you talking about?"

"His recent windfall. Didn't he tell you?"

"Clearly not."

"I saw him at Gringotts a few weeks ago banking a cheque for 20,000 galleons. I assumed you knew."

"And you never thought of mentioning this just in case I didn't?"

"A man's personal finances are not something to be gossiped about Harry," Lucius drawled, as if explaining to a small child, "I only brought it up _now_ because it was relevant to the conversation."

"Okay, well that aside, don't you think it's a little odd that he lied to me about needing to get back to the office?"

Lucius bit his cheek, "Perhaps he's carrying on an illicit affair with the barmaid from the Three Broomsticks?"

Harry rolled his eyes. "I checked the last destination from the floo in my office after Arthur left..."

"And?"

"It was to the wizarding exchange in Edinburgh," Harry looked nauseous and Lucius knew exactly why.

"Does he have any friends up there?" Was rational response to the irrational mess in his son-in-law's head.

"No. Not that I know of. I guess there was that girl I saw at his place a few weeks ago. But she didn't sound Scottish... her accent was weird, like she might have been Russian or something once?"

Lucius raised his eyebrow in mockery of that statement, though it took Harry a few minutes to notice.

"Okay okay, you know what I mean."

Lucius didn't budge.

"Stop looking at me like that. I mean, of course she didn't just _randomly_ stop being Russian, I just meant the accent was really weak."

Lucius rolled his eyes, "Either way, that's probably all it is – he's met some floozy and is slacking off on his responsibilities a bit because he can afford too."

"Which I could accept if that weren't now another cog in the mystery. Where on earth would he get that much money? It's not like Aurors are well paid."

Harry's tense muscles snapped him up from his chair and he began to pace in front of the unlit fireplace. Lucius cleared his throat but cast his face to his hands to avoid Harry's attention.

"The cheque, it was muggle money, he was having it converted to galleons."

Harry stared at him.

"So Ron has a wealthy muggle benefactor and has been taking secret trips to Edinburgh."

"Harry, we both decided a long time ago not to get our hopes up by things like this. I know you have this hunch-"

"It's not just a hunch though, is it? You have to admit it makes sense! It's the nearest city to those bloody woods! And I _feel_ something whenever I'm there. I can't explain it, but it's more than just a hunch."

"You've combed that city a dozen times Harry, you've never found any evidence that he went back there. Besides, Draco didn't have a penny to his name when he left, and do you really think Ron could be bought like that?"

Harry groaned and pulled at his scalp, "No. I don't know."

"I think you're seeing what you want to see here, but you'll never know for sure unless you ask your friend."

* * *

><p>Ron spent more of the run up to Christmas sleeping in Draco's spare room than he did in his own bed. Harry kept trying to corner him alone and he was terrified of what he might ask, it made more sense to him to avoid the situation altogether than to put himself in the position of having to lie outright to his best friend.<p>

He soon fell into a comfortable routine: Every morning Asha would cook breakfast for the four of them before the sun came up and then they would fan out into the city to meet the day.

Richard was always the first to leave, 7.20am on the dot, like clockwork, dressed in a full suit and freshly polished shoes. Draco was never very far behind him. Ron spent his days sightseeing with Asha as his personal tour guide, she danced him around the city with the enthusiasm of a hyperactive child and when she left him to run an errand or rehearse a show, she'd kiss him softly on the side of his mouth and laugh.

Typically on these occasions he'd head over to the site of Draco's current project and catch a glimpse of the progress. The speed of the work astounded him at first, but then he became reminded of Draco's formidable skill as a taskmaster: He knew where everyone on site was and what they were doing at any given minute, he joked with the workmen and got stuck in to help. Ron really didn't understand why he bothered to leave the house in a suit because it seemed by mid afternoon he was usually in overalls, dust clogging his hair, and - once - sledgehammer in hand.

By the 18th December, the place was hardly recognisable. Draco insisted that it still had a long way to go, but for now the newly varnished bar shone, the electricity was apparently safe, and the walls were clean, flat, and ready for colour. Painting was apparently not Draco's forte, and he took this as his cue to leave the site for the rest of the day, Ron in tow.

As they drove across the city to some unknown location, Ron decided that Draco was a menace behind the wheel of a car – his foot was far too fond of the accelerator pedal. They arrived in an oxidised industrial wasteland where the only signs of life to be seen were clumps of browning grass taking slim advantage of the cracks in the concrete.

Draco strode over to a large metal structure and unlocked the heavy padlocks on the doors.

"Well come on then," he beckoned impatiently to Ron, who was lagging behind.

"Why do I get the feeling you've been lulling me into a false sense of security?"

"Oh shut up you wuss," Draco grabbed his arm and yanked him inside, clanging the heavy metal door shut behind them and leaving them with nothing but a pitch-black void.

"Draco?" Ron strained when his friend moved slightly away to the right.

"Hang on..."

Less than a second later Ron heard a heavy clunk followed by a whirring sound as the place flicked into view.

"Sweet Merlin!" Ron stepped forward, rolling his head around skywards, turning as he walked to take in the sheer sight of it all.

"Watch your tongue!" Draco chastised but his face didn't carry the bite of his bark.

"What is this place?"

"Well Ron, it's what's commonly known as a warehouse."

"You made all of these?" Ron gestured around him in all directions at the things hanging from the ceiling, lining the walls, presumably filling the rows upon rows of boxes stacked neatly on the four aisles of shelves that took up the back half of the building.

Draco raised an eyebrow as he lifted a set of ladders over to a specific set of shelves and set them up steady, "What do _you_ think?"

Ron gaped.

"Come on young fly catcher, believe it or not we're here to work, it's about time you earned your keep."

"There's so many of them... Why don't you sell them or something? You'd make a bloody fortune!"

"I couldn't even if I wanted to," Draco laughed, "Now seriously, snap out of it, we're gathering up stuff to decorate the new pub. I'm gonna go up here and pass stuff down to you. Don't drop anything or I'll castrate you with a glass cutter!"

Ron flinched at the imagery and did as he was told.

Two hours later found them crouched on the floor surrounded by boxes, inspecting their haul of glass artefacts. Draco had picked out coasters and placemats that swirled red and black and silver around each other; clear wine glasses that were wound in ruby red spirals; black long-stem candle holders; and a crate of something that Ron was yet to see.

"Well," he prodded.

"Well, I haven't looked at these in quite a few years, and I'm getting there, okay?" Draco took a deep breath and carefully prised the wooden lid open with a crowbar. Inside was a layer of thick grey velvet and after a few moments Draco lifted it to the side.

Ron gasped.

Six impossibly beautiful glass roses lay side by side: emerald green stems, deep red petals.

"What do you think?" Draco asked as lightly as he could.

"You did this?" Somehow, in that moment it didn't seem like a redundant question; Draco nodded.

"How many are there?"

"There should be two dozen," Draco said softly.

"Why?"

Draco shrugged, "I felt like it one day I guess, I don't really think about what I make, I just potter about and occasionally something comes good."

"They don't look like flukes to me Draco. You're really good at this, why are you shying away from that?"

"I just don't really like making a big deal out of it, it's just a hobby, it's not like I'll ever make a living out of it."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't want to, I can't. It's complicated." Draco furrowed his brow and nestled the velvet back over the top layer of roses.

"Sorry, am I pushing it?"

"Yes," Draco swung his eyes to meet Ron's but dropped his head before his scowl could have any real impact, "No, you're not. It's just... you know, you go through life, and... sometimes the people you meet along the way, they shape you for the better. And when they're gone –because, at some point, everyone has to go- you carry them with you. You pay tribute to them in the mundane corners of your life where no one bothers to intrude, in the certain way you stir your coffee, or the particular street you'll always find a reason to walk down... And you don't advertise these things because the silence, somehow, keeps them closer to your heart; makes them yours."

"I wouldn't call this mundane," Ron said quietly, trying nevertheless to understand what Draco was saying.

"Maybe not," Draco smiled weakly, "But I can still try for the silence."

* * *

><p>Later that evening Draco set about the business of making dinner. Ron had gone home to make sure his flat still existed, Richard was still chained to his desk at work, and Asha was still rehearsing for her new show. He placed a large pot of rice on the hob and brought it to the boil. A strange notion overcame him as he watched it bubble and try as he might he couldn't get rid of it. Clasping his hands to the edge of the worktop he let it fester until he couldn't take it anymore.<p>

Slowly he lifted his hand and concentrated on the wooden spoon he's been using to stir the rice. He made a circular motion with his fingers and watched as the spoon mimicked the action. He looked around, guilt and exhilaration threading through him. Biting his lip, he did it again, for longer this time.

"What's all this?"

Draco might have jumped four foot in the air, or it might just have been his heart, "Jesus, Ash! Don't creep up on me like that!"

"Hey, don't mind me," she said, holding up her hands and sitting down at the breakfast bar.

Draco grabbed the spoon and began to stir the rice the muggle way, "It doesn't mean anything, okay? I'm not about to do a back flip on the subject. I just had this weird momentary compulsion; it's out of my system now."

"It's not weird. Weird is bottling it up the way you do."

"I don't need it," Draco bit.

"It's not about whether you _need_ it Draco, it's a part of who you are."

"Just drop it."

"It's getting harder and harder to hold it in isn't it?"

"I'm managing, I have a safe outlet."

"Draining yourself of magic once a year isn't a safe outlet Draco, and even if it were, it's not enough anymore is it? Look at the way you lost control that night with Ron?"

"Emotions were running high, they've been running high ever since, that's all it is. I'm getting a handle on it now."

"Whatever you say Draco," she said in a tone that strongly implied she knew she was right and no amount of protesting could convince her otherwise.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Let me know what you think? As always, any and all comments welcome – please be honest!**

**Oh, I've gone and set up a new live journal, for certain things in the future of this story that I might not get away with posting here. I'll be archiving everything there, and probably musing between chapters. Feel free to look it up, it's under my usual name of lucisaurora.**

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	9. Deer Stalking

**A/N:**

**New Chapter! Yey!  
><strong>

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and new violin pegs.**

* * *

><p>Harry held the vial up to the light and scrutinised it for a moment. He could smell wafts of peppermint and chocolate, and was thankful for that. Shaking his head, he brought the vial to his lips and downed the contents in one fell swoop. He felt the familiar twang of his insides starting to shift around. He watched his hands shrink, the fingers becoming smooth and slender, he almost laughed when his chest swelled out and his hair flowed down, lightening along the way. Taking his wand, he pointed once to his clothes and once to his voice box, before stepping out in front of his bedroom mirror. Staring back at him was an unassuming blond girl dressed in trainers, flared jeans, and a purple vest top.<p>

* * *

><p>Ron crunched his way across the city's snowdrift in a sulk. When he eventually reached the coffee shop he forced a smile for the waitress and was told 'Mr Hart' was in the stockroom but would be out soon. He ordered a coffee and dumped himself down at a seat by the window. A blond girl glanced over at him from a nearby table but he was in no mood to strike up a conversation, instead he turned inward to his own gloomy thoughts.<p>

"You look like someone's smacked you in the face with a wet fish." Draco announced as took up the chair across from Ron. Ron saw the blond girl staring over at them and realised he'd probably been drawing attention to himself by scowling up a storm and grumbling under his breath.

"I'm fine," he ground out.

"You don't look fine."

"It's nothing."

"You're not... having an attack of conscience are you? About me?"

"I have a permanent attack of conscience when it comes to you!" Ron growled.

Draco sat back in his chair, his eyes darkened, "That's not funny."

"Do you see me laughing?"

"You know what," Draco said as he rose to his feet, "I have places to be. Maybe we'll catch up when you've stopped acting like a bloody pratt."

Ron shifted uncomfortably, they were making a scene. The blond was staring down into her coffee cup trying to pretend she couldn't hear, but the repulsed look on her face told him that he was being an arse.

"Hermione's getting remarried."

Draco stalled his exit, turning back to Ron, "And?"

Ron felt a surge of frustration at his friend's lack of response, "You know we got divorced, yeah?" He challenged, clenching his fists. "I mean, I know you stick your head in the sand at even the most _remote_ mention of things back home, but not even you could fail to notice what's missing from this picture," he held up his wedding finger.

Draco also noticed the attention they were drawing and he smiled an apology to the blond girl whose eyes widened at being caught staring.

He gracefully re-took his seat, "That, and the fact that you keep making moon eyes at my best friend. Which leads me to ask, why do you care?"

Ron deflated, "Because they're going to be this complete family unit now. Him, her, and my kids. There's no room for me in that picture."

"Okay, first of all let's get one thing straight," Draco pointed a finger in Ron's face, "That damn well better be the only reason you're sulking over this."

"Well why else would I care!"

"Do you still have a thing for that daft bint?" Draco's voice was low and dangerous.

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"Because I swear to god Ron, if you're stringing Asha along I'll break you in half."

Ron shot him an angry look, "She can take care of herself."

"Yeah, it seems that way doesn't it?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean she's not as savvy and untouchable as she likes to make out. She thinks the world's full of good people and its bloody well not. She falls too easily and she gets hurt, and just because she manages to bounce back from it doesn't make it okay."

"You think I'd do that?"

"I think you're fallible like the rest of us, so I'm warning you, because you're my friend - Don't - Give me - A reason." Draco punctuated the threat with jabs to Ron's chest.

Ron stuttered, ready to defend himself but unable to choose the right words.

"Shut it, I'm not finished," Draco said, "Secondly, you're an idiot, you know that?

Ron folded his arms and gave up the fight, "Yeah, I know that."

"No, seriously, you're a world class title-weight eejit."

"Thanks, sometimes I forget how charming you can be."

Draco sighed and put his head in his hands for a moment before meeting his friend's eyes, "You'll always be their father, nobody can take that away from you, he can't take your place."

Ron looked hopeful, "Yeah?"

"My old boss, Mr Henderson," Draco shifted in his seat, "Well he's much more than that to me. He didn't just give me a job, he welcomed me into his family. I call him my old man, and he treats me like the son he never had. He's guided me and supported me and I try to make him proud with everything I do because he's part of who I am. But he could never replace my father."

"I thought you hated Lucius?"

Draco flinched at the familiar use of his father's name. "Of course I don't hate him! I was angry at him for a long time, and I can't say that I've forgiven or forgotten, but my father isn't what keeps me away, I thought I was pretty clear before on what does."

The pair sat in silence for a few minutes until eventually Draco shoved Ron's shoulder and they both laughed to ease the last of the tension between them.

"I meant it when I said I had places to be," Draco said.

"Oh, okay," Ron looked disappointed.

"You could come," Draco looked down and picked at his nails, "If you wanted to, that is."

"When, where, for how long?"

"Now, up north, and we'd be back by this time tomorrow. "

Ron stretched his arms over his head and did his best to look nonchalant, "Well, it's not like I have anything better to do."

Draco stood and knocked on the table, "Hop to it then. Chop chop."

Ron stood and put his arm around his friend's shoulders as they headed for the door, "Hang on," he stopped suddenly, "You're not driving are you?"

"Do you have a problem with that?"

Ron turned to face him, "You drive like a mental case!"

"So we'll get there in half the time," Draco returned, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The blond girl allowed herself to watch them leave. When she removed her hands from their death grip around her coffee cup they were shaking uncontrollably. She touched her face and found it was pale, clammy. Her eyes sought out the bathroom sign and she took a deep breath before getting to her feet and hurrying over to it.

* * *

><p>Harry shut the cubicle door behind him, still shaking, though now from head to foot. His knees buckled beneath him and he landed on the tiled floor just as the tears started to fall. He gripped the toilet lid with one hand and covered his mouth with the other, the tears were everywhere now, flowing out from the pit of horror in his stomach, over his face and hands and arm. Seeing Draco striding across the coffee shop like he owned the place was... terrifying. He felt a rope wrap around his neck in response to it: tighter with every word and gesture, until he thought he might pass out from lack of blood to the brain.<p>

"Are you alright in there?" Harry hadn't even heard anyone come in, but now they were knocking on the door having obviously heard his muffled pain. He stood up slowly and opened the cubicle door. His eyes were so swollen he could barely see, and he knew he must look like a complete mess but right then he barely cared.

"Aw honey," the concerned stranger exclaimed, "Are you okay?"

"No," Harry coughed out.

"Come over here by the sink," she said, guiding him over and filling up a basin of water. He leaned over it, splashed his face, and took the offered paper towels to dry off. He looked into the mirror and almost jumped when he saw not his face, but that of the blond girl he'd transformed into. He saw the other girl reflected behind him and suddenly realised who she was.

"Man troubles?"

Harry stared at her waist length strawberry blond hair, her odd clothes, her warm smile. She reminded him of Luna, but this definitely wasn't Luna.

"Something like that," he whispered.

"I'm Asha," she said, offering her hand. Harry froze and just looked at it until it withdrew. "Listen, I was hoping to catch my flatmate but I must've just missed him, if you need someone to talk to I can get us a coffee?"

Harry felt acid rise up in his throat, "I need to go," he said, bolting for the door and out of the shop into the fresh air.

* * *

><p>After a short trip to Draco's flat for a few extra supplies they were out of the big city, and Ron actually began to enjoy Draco's seemingly reckless brand of driving. He realised that his friend was in fact fully aware of the road around him, even if he acted to the contrary.<p>

They drove with the windows down and the music up, past hillscapes of sheep and through quaint little villages. The land twisted and rolled around them for hours; it was nightfall by the time they parked up at a desolate little cottage in the middle of nowhere.

"We're here," Draco announced.

"What is this place?"

"It's a bothy," Draco said, as though that explained everything, "Come on, help me with the bags."

The fresh air hit Ron's stomach and he realised how hungry he was with a wave of nausea. He staggered backwards slightly when Draco threw a rucksack into his reluctant arms before scooping up the rest of their kit, making for the front door, and nudging it open with his shoulder.

"Do you own this thing?" Ron looked around, there wasn't much to it really: A small fireplace, three rickety looking chairs, and a table pushed against the back wall of the room.

"God no, I imagine it's owned by the Lord of the estate, but they only ever use it during deer stalking season," Draco lifted the rucksack from Ron's arms and sat it on the floor next to the pile of items he'd brought in.

"Isn't this trespassing?"

Draco crouched down and began rifling through their bags, "Nah, travellers from all over use this place the rest of the year. Check out the sign."

Ron looked around and indeed there was a sign indicating that visitors were welcome - outwith the month of October - provided they left the place as they found it.

"Then how did you know it would be empty?"

"I didn't really, but it usually is on the eve of the solstice. I guess most people prefer to be tucked up in their own beds this close to Christmas," Draco was sat on his haunches, smiling up at him and holding a block of firewood in each hand.

"So, where do we sleep?"

"Um..." Draco bit his lips together, raised his eyebrows, and glanced around the room. Ron stepped back in disbelief.

"No way," he said, holding up his hands against the idea, "We'll freeze to death! We'll be eaten by wolves!"

Draco blurted out a laugh at this before he could stop himself, and he regretted the hurt look on his friend's face.

"There are no wolves out here Ron, we're in Scotland," he began gently, "And we won't freeze, that's what the fire's for," he tried to keep his tone light but he was beginning to see that he'd misjudged the situation completely. He felt his face fall into one of sadness and he bowed his head to hide it. "Look, I would have given you more warning, but I figured you'd appreciate the adventure. I won't be offended if you want to go home. I have to stay, but you could, you know," Draco made a motion with his fingers to suggest that Ron could apparate out.

Ron sat himself down on one of the chairs and sighed, "No, I'm being a bloody pansy. I'll suck it up. What needs doing?"

Draco grinned, "Can you find me the flasks of tea while I light a fire?"

Ron nodded and set about the task, glancing up from time to time study Draco's back as he loaded wood into the fireplace. Dear Merlin he was cold! His teeth were beginning to chatter, but just as he located the flasks he heard the roar of the fire and the room flooded with heat.

"That was quick," he said, re-taking his seat by the fire and handing one of the flasks to Draco, who took it with a guilty look on his face.

"What?" Ron took a moment to click, "You did that with magic." It was a statement, not a question.

Draco mumbled something to himself and wrung his hands.

"But you don't use magic," Ron sounded suspicious, "At least, not intentionally."

"Rules can be broken occasionally," Draco shrugged but the effect was negated by his uneasy tone.

"What rules?"

"My rules," Draco met his eyes, "It's complicated."

Ron nodded, though he didn't really understand, "What are we doing up here Draco?"

"Seven years ago I woke up in a hospital bed, clean of magic. I decided then that I was better off without it. I cast a spell on some of paperwork they had me fill out so that it would infiltrate the records and spread out into any other records connected to them. Like a virus. I vowed that that would be my last act as a wizard."

"That's how you changed your identity?"

Draco nodded.

"I've heard stories of wizards who tried to suppress their magic Draco, and none of them could."

"I was naive, I'll admit that," Draco gave him a wry look. "Long story short, I realised I couldn't just bottle it up and forget about it. So every year on the Winter Solstice I come up here and let it out."

Ron was stumped, "So you're breaking the rules because it's not the solstice yet?"

"You think I'm being ridiculous," Draco grimaced.

"I didn't say that."

"You're thinking it though. That's okay. I didn't expect you to get it. I'm glad of the company though, so I..." Draco looked around awkwardly, "Thanks for staying."

Ron clubbed him on the shoulder in return.

* * *

><p>The next morning Ron awoke stiff. Sleeping bag or no, flagstones did not make a comfortable bed.<p>

Draco was already up. Ron sleepily watched him gather their rubbish from the night before into a plastic bag he'd brought with them.

"Morning," he said, "I'm going to dump this stuff in the car, if you want to get dressed I'll make us some breakfast."

Breakfast consisted of sausages roasted on the fire and hard boiled eggs Draco had brought with them. Afterward they packed up the rest of their stuff into the car and doused the fire with a bottle of water.

"What now?"

"Now, we're going for a bit of a walk," Draco handed Ron two small bottles of water to stash in the pockets of the fleece jacket he'd lent him.

Walk had been an understatement as far as Ron could tell; this was more like a hike. After about an hour Ron was starting to list, he thought about asking how much further they would be going but the look of concentration on Draco's face told him not to.

Eventually Draco stopped on the edge of a massive circle of toadstools. At least, Ron assumed it was a circle, it stretched out so far that he couldn't see the other side.

"What are we doing here? Fairy rings are dangerous Draco."

"This isn't a fairy ring, it just looks that way, come on," Draco said and offered his hand. Together they stepped into the circle and Ron's jaw dropped.

This hidden place was full of life. There were more species of magical creature here than in the forbidden forest. The air was thick with the smell of wildflowers and sparks of pure magic fluttered between them like butterflies. Toward the other side of the circle a unicorn of pure light grazed on the long grass there. In the middle of everything was a shimmering black obelisk.

"This place is beautiful, how did you find it?"

"I made it."

"But it's unplottable, I felt it when we crossed the line. The ministry put a trace on unplottable spells after the war, they'd have sent a team of Aurors straight here within minutes."

"I made it unplottable before the war ended, it's been added to in others ways since then though," Draco said quietly, no longer paying attention to Ron, but instead making his way toward the centre of the circle. Ron followed.

The unicorn made it's way over and nuzzled in to Draco's hand when he stopped to greet it.

"This is your patronus," Ron said.

"It is indeed. Such a good girl you are too," he whispered to it.

They continued their journey and when they reached the stone in the centre Draco knelt in front of it. Ron knelt beside him. It was then that he saw the plaque fixed there and the name 'Chloe Evans'.

He watched as Draco placed his hands on the stone, his hands glowed with magic and the stone lit up with it. Within minutes a sphere of gold engulfed the whole circle, and it shone as bright as the sun above them. An eternity later Draco let go. He wrapped his arms around his body and shivered. Ron took off his coat and wrapped it around him.

"Are you okay?"

"I'll be fine. I just need a little while to recover."

"She's the child you lost. You and Harry."

Draco nodded.

"You didn't tell him?"

"I tried. I couldn't make him hear me. He had his own way of dealing with things I guess. You're the only other person who's set foot in this place."

Ron pulled his friend up into his arms and held on tight.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**You beautiful wonderful fantastical readers/reviewers, I love you, you are amazing :)  
><strong>

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	10. Dragon's Hart

**A/N:**

***Chapter first posted 29-06-2012; Edited 02-07-2012.**

**So I first posted this a little too eagerly. I'm swamped at work and I knew I was to be MIA all weekend what with the Pride Scotia festivities so I wanted to get it posted rather than make you lovely people wait forever for it. **

**However, I'm seriously regretting this now. I've decided to rework it and split it in half. This is therefore the reworked 1****st**** half of Chapter 10...**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and tiffin.**

* * *

><p>Harry scrunched up his eyes to block out the light creeping in through the closed drapes. His mouth tasted like something had crawled into it and died, and the impatient knocking he somehow couldn't escape confirmed his suspicions about what had woken him.<p>

"What?" He grumbled, barely loud enough to be heard through his heavy bedroom door; frankly part of him hoped he wasn't heard.

The door cracked open and Lucius stepped inside, "How are you feeling this morning?"

"It's morning?"

"Afraid so," Lucius came over and sat on the bed, reaching over to feel Harry's forehead.

Harry batted his hand away and rolled onto his face. His stomach was lurching.

"Ron?" He asked through the pillow.

"No, not yet. You know, I hate to admit it, but these insufferable red-heads have been good to you Harry. They've been good to me." Lucius paused as though grimacing at his own sentimentality, "There's a reasonable explanation for everything, I'm sure of it."

Harry was thankful that his face was hidden at that moment because he didn't think it would have held up to scrutiny. He felt like a shining neon beacon of guilt.

"I just need to talk to him. I need him to explain. Why would he do this to me? He must have a reason."

"You don't know he's done _anything_ to you, Harry. Trust your friend." Lucius stood up to leave, "I'll let you get some more sleep. Don't worry about Astrid, I'll take care of her."

"Thanks," Harry mumbled.

Alone again, Harry rolled onto his back and stared at the plaster patterned ceiling. As he contemplated, he steadily stoked a rage in his chest, adding fuel to it with each new biting thought.

Time passed and the rage grew higher up his throat, he found that he didn't particularly want to be generous or rational anymore. He wanted to hate his friend.

He wanted to march down to the drawing room and tell Lucius exactly what kind of bastard Ron really was. He wanted Lucius to take action on that rage; to destroy the bonds and bridges that had been wrought over the years between his old family and his new one, because there could be no explanation worthy enough of forgiveness for this.

Instead, he heeded that last tiny flickering of hope for an alternative and lashed out his fury at the bedclothes.

* * *

><p>"Where's your suit?"<p>

"Suit?" Ron blanched.

Richard nodded slowly, bug eyed, attention flicking briefly to the clock behind Ron's head.

"I didn't realise it would be such a formal thing," Ron felt his face start to colour.

Richard impatiently grabbed Ron's sleeve and pulled him through the flat, "Come on, I might have something that will fit, we'll have to be quick though."

Ron padded from foot to foot as Richard rummaged through his closet and handed him various items. "These should work, I'll wait in the living room."

When Ron emerged Richard was wrapped up in his long overcoat, tapping his foot with impatience.

"Will I pass?"

Richard looked him over, "Much better. Now move, we're late!"

They hurried out to the sleet soaked street where Richard promptly hailed a taxi. Ron checked his watch: they still had five minutes to get to the Dragon's Hart before the party started, but he wasn't sure how far away that was - he'd yet to see the jewel in Draco's blossoming business empire.

"Can I ask you something?"

Richard gave him a distracted nod, Ron could tell he was still preoccupied with their lack of punctuality. "Sorry," he added quickly, "I just hate not being on time, go ahead, what is it?"

"Why did he call it 'The Dragon's Hart'?"

Richard shrugged, "It was his first independent business venture, he built it from the ground up, I guess he wanted to put his name on it. God knows what he'll call the new one. He's a sentimental fool really; don't tell him I said that."

Ron allowed himself a short laugh at that but it came out with a bitter twinge that he hadn't intended.

When the cab finally pulled up in front of a large ornately styled building Richard overpaid their fare in his haste to be rid of the thing.

Ron was already out on the pavement, gazing up at the impressive gothic stonework and the high arched windows. "This is it?"

"That's what the sign says isn't it?" Richard bundled them both indoors without ceremony.

Inside was all plush green carpet and warmly stained wood. Two curved staircases framed a long bar which stretched against the far wall. The staircases led to an upper floor where a great pewter dragon with wide-spread wings stood perched on the balcony rail. Its glittering black eyes seemed to survey the gathering below with interest.

Draco sat on a stool at the bar talking to the same elderly gentleman he had been at Asha's birthday party. He waved Ron and Richard over with a relaxed gesture.

"Ron, meet my old man! Jack Henderson, Ron Weasley," he introduced.

Ron took the extended hand and shook it firmly, trying to rid himself of the feeling that he was being probed by the elder man's sharp gaze.

"Welcome to the infamous Henderson-Hart staff Christmas party boy. I do hope you've brought your wits..."

Draco smiled at that, "Ron is an old friend from school Sir."

Henderson gave a choked laugh, "Ah, a relic from this mysterious past of yours." He leaned in closer to Ron, "You know sometimes I've suspected that he just sprouted from the ground, fully grown."

"Nope, we've known each other since we were about 11," Ron replied with an uneasy shrug of his shoulders, "Sir," he quickly added, because it seemed to be the thing to do. "Right git you were back then too," he teased Draco.

This caught Richard's interest and he leaned in, "Was he now? Do tell..."

"Oh look, Asha's here," Draco said.

Ron turned his head and took in a quick breath. He was mesmerised by the sight of her in her long black dress and her long black gloves. Her hair was swept back into a ponytail that hung all the way down her back, black gems strewn through it at random.

"Scrubs up well doesn't she?"

Ron thought he'd never heard anything as ridiculous in his whole life, Asha always looked good, she'd look good in a jute sack with duct tape for a belt _he_ thought. But tonight...

"She's beautiful," he all but drooled.

Draco rolled his eyes at him and steered him towards her, pushing him the final few steps and leaving the two of them to catch up.

* * *

><p>Two hours later the party was in full swing, people were dancing and mingling and generally having a good time; Ron and Draco had just taken up seats near the edge of the room when Ron felt something shift in the atmosphere. He turned just as almost everyone in the room drew mini plastic pistols on one another and an impromptu water-fight broke out. He turned back to Draco expecting some kind of reaction, but his friend barely batted an eyelid and said simply, "Give them another hour or so, then you'll <em>really<em> see something."

Ron blew out a long breath, "You definitely know how to hold a decent shindig, I'll give you that."

"Oh come now, this old thing could hardly hold a candle to a traditional Weasley Christmas," Draco smiled, "When do the red-heads assemble anyway? You're not missing some sort of mass family gathering on my account are you?"

"No, no, not until Christmas Day itself - thank Merlin!"

Draco looked at him strangely.

"When you have sixteen nieces and nephews who've all inherited the Weasley mischief gene-"

"Sixteen! How the hell do you all fit into the burrow?"

Ron laughed.

"We don't, gave up on that one years ago. Lucius has far more room anyway."

Draco crossed his brow, "My father? You're spending Christmas at the Manor?" He asked sharply.

Ron bit his tongue, "Well, yes. It's sort of a tradition now to be honest. Look, I'm sorry; I didn't mean to bring it up, I wasn't thinking."

Draco ignored him.

"And he's... okay with this?"

"He grumbles about being invaded by riff raff, but it's all talk really."

Draco looked torn, "Can I ask something?"

Ron nodded and gave his friend a curious look.

"Does it snow?"

"What do you mean?"

"During Christmas dinner, does it snow in the dining room?"

Ron raised an eyebrow and made it obvious that he thought Draco had lost his mind, "Um, no, can't say I've ever seen that."

It's Dad's favourite part of Christmas, or it used to be..." Draco said with a faraway look in his eyes before shaking himself off, "Anyway, enough of that," he said firmly and looked as though he were trying to fish out a new topic of conversation.

Ron hesitated and picked at the label of his beer bottle.

"Um," he started, "Can I ask you something?"

Draco nodded.

"You are okay with me... pursuing Asha... right? I mean, I assumed you'd say something if you weren't, but... I just wanted to... check." Ron's face was definitely scarlet by the end of this.

"Sure, why not." Draco answered easily, "Just so long as you don't do something stupid like run off and get married."

As Draco winked at him, Ron noticed an angry red line peeking up just slightly above his friend's collar. If he hadn't being trying to stare anywhere but Draco's face he wouldn't have even seen it, but the flippant words and the mark came together all of a sudden to make Ron's blood turn acidic in his veins.

"Don't you ever get bored of it?"

"Of what?" Draco sipped his soda and lime with an innocent expression.

"Of that," Ron jabbed a finger at his friend's neck.

Draco's eyes flicked with something unreadable before he seemed to squash it down. "Of sex? Nope, can't say I do."

"Of the meaninglessness of it all," Ron ground out, feeling frustrated by the deliberate ignorance.

"You mean, don't I ever just wanna settle down, get hitched, have a few kids?" Draco raised his eyebrows. "No, never," he said, looking down at his drink as he swirled it around in its glass. "Why, were you going to make me a proposition?" He asked with another wink.

"Can't you ever be serious?"

"Not about that, sorry to disappoint." Draco stood and gave an insincere smile before stalking off into the thick of the party.

* * *

><p>The party finished with a bang. Literally. Ron's bones nearly jumped out of his skin and he was sat all the way across the street on a low stone wall in a sulk. He watched people stumble out of the building and laugh their way toward home. Those that passed him asked if he were feeling alright and he brushed them off with assurances that he'd just needed some air.<p>

Eventually the final four exited together. Draco locked up while Richard put Mr Henderson in a cab. Asha spotted Ron and crossed over to greet him with open arms. He suspected she was quite drunk, but not obnoxiously so, and he forced a small smile for her.

They walked home in silence, Asha skipping ahead to swing around the lampposts. _She_ may have been oblivious to the tension but Richard certainly wasn't. He looked between Draco and Ron with a frown, at one point it seemed as though he wanted to say something to Ron but Draco placed a hand on his arm and shook his head slightly.

When they finally arrived back at the flat Draco held Ron back.

"A word," he said. Richard and Asha shared a look before heading inside and shutting the door behind them.

"Sit," Draco pointed to the curved stone bench around the roof garden's fire-pit. Ron glared back at him but complied.

"I'm a grown man. I'll do what I want, when I want, and I won't apologise to you or anyone else for it," Draco said. His voice was stern, but his eyes betrayed his certainty. At least, they would have if Ron had been looking at them.

"Of course," Ron said quietly.

Neither of them spoke for some time, until the cold was biting at their toes and their teeth threatened to chatter.

Draco felt himself buckle under the weight of the silence and his friend's resigned posture. He sat himself down beside Ron, "My serious response to your question," Draco started, "There _have_ been times when I've thought that maybe, I might be ready for that... to let someone in, you know?"

Ron turned his head but said nothing.

"But every time I tried, it just never felt... right," Draco continued, "And I really don't claim to know much about being in a relationship, but I _do_ know that you shouldn't take someone's heart if you can't give them yours in return. Harry taught me that," he finished under his breath.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Draco rubbed his eyes, "I'm gonna catch some shut eye, I'll see you in the morning," he said as he stood and made for the door.

"You've always had his heart Draco."

"No," he contended, "I didn't."

Ron stood too, "How can you say that?"

"Because it's true. Goodnight Ron," Draco said firmly.

"You can't just say something like that and walk away!"

"I can and I am."

"But that's bullshit!"

Draco drew in a deep breath, "You're treading on really fucking thin ice Ron. Look, I know he was your best friend, but the fact remains that loving him nearly destroyed me.

"Frankly, in a perfect world, Harry and I never would have met, I'd have been born a muggle, and I'd be content for Cal and I to grow old together. But the world's not perfect, it is what it is, and we just have to get on with it. All I know is I don't want anyone to ever feel even a fraction of that kind of pain because of me."

"You're saying you didn't love him?"

"Are you even listening to me you numbskull? I'm not saying I didn't love Harry, I'm saying I wish I didn't. Maybe that's worse in your eyes, but it's how I feel, you can do what you want with it but it's the truth."

Draco wrenched open the flat's main door and disappeared inside, leaving it slightly ajar but not bothering to look back.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

***Chapter first posted 29-06-2012; Edited 02-07-2012.**

**Please forgive me for my 'after-the-horse-has-bolted' editing, I really do think the story will benefit from it though.**

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	11. Dragon's Hart II

**A/N:**

***Chapter first posted 29-06-2012; Edited 04-07-2012.**

**Massive apologies for the disruption to the story! This is the properly edited 2****nd**** half of what was originally chapter 10. I posted it in too much of a rush and I really regretted it. **

**This newly edited version contains an additional scene or two that I skipped out of the original version, so it's not a complete waste, and I will be posting a 'real' new chapter ASAP.**

**Sorry again, and thank you for putting up with me.**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and cream soda.**

* * *

><p>"<em>I thought I told you never to come back here," Draco said conversationally, stirring his cup of lapsang souchong as his eye wandered around the coffee bar.<em>

_Harry looked at Draco's back from his own table a little way off. "No you didn't, you didn't even talk to me, didn't even notice me."_

"_That's a lie," Draco bit back._

_After a long silence Draco smacked his teaspoon down on the hardwood surface in front of him, "Are you just going to _sit_ there?"_

_Harry shrunk into himself, "I can't move, it feels like the ground's trying to swallow me up."_

"_So let it."_

"_I just want you to turn around and see me," Harry whispered, heart aching._

Draco wore a look of pure distain and shook his head. He drummed his fingers on his table for longer than Harry thought he could stand. "_I'll be your ruin and you'll be my rage. You'll make your bed on the floor of my cage..." Draco murmured into the gap of silence that expanded between them._

"_What does _that_ mean?"_

_Draco said nothing. _

_Just when Harry's head dropped into his hands, Draco stood and turned toward him. Slowly he made his way over to where Harry sat frozen in time. He reached out and took up his hand, pulling him to his feet. He led him across the shop floor to his bedroom; Harry didn't find anything odd in the seamless scenery change, Draco simply gestured for him to lie down on the bed and so Harry did. _

_Draco perched on the edge and Harry watched him remove a string of blue beads and set them on the bedside table. There was something odd about those beads, something he was supposed to remember, Harry was sure._

_Draco gave him little time to puzzle over this, his teeth were on Harry's neck before he had time to brace himself. His fingers clawed at Harry's shirt and tore it apart so that his mouth could continue its assault path downwards. Harry let out a heavy moan when eight fingernails ripped down his chest. His head lolled to the side and he caught sight of those beads again. Harry felt a haze wrap around his head, he tangled his fingers in his husband's hair and pulled him back up. He took Draco's bottom lip between his teeth and locked on to his eyes as they kissed. He fell deeper and deeper; whether further into the haze or out of it altogether he wasn't entirely sure. _

_Draco turned Harry's face again and sucked on his jaw line; the beads soon became lost in sparks of-_

"_Draco?" Harry tried, but was summarily ignored. With renewed effort Harry pushed the blond up off him. _

"_What?" Draco asked him sharply._

"_This is a dream Draco."_

_Draco looked down at him, tracing his fingers over the dripping ribbons of blood, "What if I don't want it to be?"_

_Harry propped himself up on his elbows, "That doesn't change the fact that it is."_

"_Why not? Maybe I'll make this the real world, maybe I'll never wake up and I can stay here, with you."_

_Harry took the beads and slipped them back around Draco's wrist, "You need to know the difference between this and the real world, love. Otherwise-" _

"_Otherwise what? Otherwise I might delude myself into thinking I can be happy? There's no you in that place Harry."_

"_Yes there is, I promise you. I'll come for you; I'll prove it to you." _

_Draco drew back from him and shook his head, fear clutching at his throat, "No, you can't." _

"_I can," Harry nodded, reaching out, "I will." _

_Draco jumped backwards away from Harry with such force that he clattered off the edge of the bed and only just managed to find his feet._

"_What's wrong?"_

"_You can't be there, I can't be mad again, I won't let it happen."_

"_Draco, you were never mad."_

"_Ron said that," Draco sneered before faltering at his own words._

_Flashes of Ron's dead body flickered on the floor at his feet. Harry gaped at it, Draco stumbled further away, "No. That didn't happen," he brought his hands to his face and tried to blot out all of the mismatched information crushing around in his skull._

"_None of this is happening," Draco said to no one as he wrapped his arms around himself and dug his fingernails into his hips. With a snap of his neck he looked Harry directly in the eye, "Why can't you leave me __alone__!" He screamed, so hard that red spots appeared in his eyes, and then everything was black._

* * *

><p>"Harry!" Lucius threw open the door to his son-in-law's bedroom, pausing briefly to consider the invasion of privacy before taking in the sight of the blood stained sheets.<p>

Harry sat on the edge of his bed in nothing but his boxers, hands fisted in his own hair. "Yeah?" was his feeble reply.

"The house elves said they couldn't wake you and that you were covered in blood."

Harry straightened his posture and waved this off, but in doing so gave away the angry streaks running down his torso, "They were being melodramatic, I'm just shattered and a bit scratched up."

"A bit- What in Merlin's name happened?" Lucius gazed around the room to see what else might be out of place, nothing was.

Harry gave him a dark look, "Your son happened."

Lucius turned his face sharply back to Harry's, "He was here?"

"No, he wandered into my dreams, or maybe I was in his. I don't really know how it works, I assume it's something to do with the bond," Harry trailed off, lost in thought.

"How could a dream do _that_ to you?"

Harry shrugged and turned around, pacing toward the window, "I dinno, he wanted it to be real so his magic made it real?"

Lucius scoffed at this but couldn't come up with a better explanation. He took a step forward and opened his mouth to speak, but found that he wasn't sure what to say.

"What the fuck have I done to him Lucius?" Harry asked suddenly, dropping down next to the full-length window and placing his hands flat against the glass, "I've spent so long trying to find him..."

"And you will," Lucius soothed.

"And when I do he'll think me some sort of twisted apparition, mere proof of his own madness," Harry snarled back. "He barely knows up from down anymore, I've ruined him Lucius. I should have just let him be."

Lucius closed the distance between them quicker than Harry could turn at the sound, he jerked his son-in-law's shoulder around, "If you'd done that, that beautiful girl down there wouldn't exist, do you really wish that?"

"No," Harry sunk into himself at that thought.

"We'll find him and we'll fix this," Lucius said firmly.

"What if we can't fix it? What if the best we can do for him now is leave him be?"

Lucius' face grew stern, "You can't think like that Harry. Draco's place is here, with his family."

"You didn't see him. Isn't it arrogant of us to assume we know what's best for him? Isn't that what drove him away in the first place?"

Lucius pursed his lips but softened upon realising how small Harry had suddenly become.

"Arthur and Molly have arrived. I expect the others won't be far behind," he prodded gently.

"I'll be down in a few minutes," but Harry didn't move from his position on the floor, instead he pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

* * *

><p>Ron arrived late for the Christmas day festivities and hesitated before he knocked on the Manor's foreboding front door.<p>

Lucius himself had answered and trapped him outside for a few sharp words in his ear about neglecting his friendship with Harry. He was told in no uncertain terms to shape up and make time to talk Harry today.

Once inside he'd been mobbed by various red-heads of assorted heights and one little blond lady who stood with her arms held up to him until he lifted her up and spun her around. The others filtered away, Ron assumed to the formal lounge where the Christmas tree normally stood.

"Daddy's not been well," Astrid whispered in his ear once the last of her pseudo cousins had scampered off, "He thinks I don't know but I do." She looked at him with her big green eyes and worried her lip.

"I'll see what I can do sweetheart," he said as he put her down again.

"You remembered how to get here then?" Harry said from the doorway.

Ron had the sense to look shamed by this statement, "I've not been around much have I? I'm sorry Harry, things have just been really complicated lately."

"I'll bet they have," Harry's voice swung like a dull blade. Astrid tiptoed around him and escaped to join the others.

Seeing Ron suitably startled by that comment relieved Harry of some small part of his frustrations, but it wasn't enough to sate them completely. He waited for more ammunition, finding it easier to do this than confront his own inward doubts.

"Can we talk?" Ron said quietly.

"Who's up for some presents!" Arthur Weasley called out to a flurry of loud excitement.

Harry twitched involuntarily in the direction of the ruckus and clenched his jaw, "Not now, later."

"Harry-"

"You will _not_ disrupt my daughter's Christmas," a low and deadly voice cut him off.

Ron bristled at this, surprised though he was by the force of his own anger. Until now, when he'd imagined this scene, he'd bowed down to Harry's fury. But now in the face of it he found it irrationally unjust.

"You weren't there."

Harry gave him a warning look to shut up, because if he didn't Harry knew the household would soon be witness to a brawl. Ron glared right back at him.

"You didn't watch him waste away for three years, destroying himself for you. You didn't have to stare into those dead eyes week after week, wondering how he was going to try to top himself next," Ron whispered as much as one generally could while so incensed.

Harry felt his stomach give out and fill up with all the doubts he'd collected these past few days. His glare wavered but Ron wasn't quite finished.

"_His_ needs, are more important than _yours _right now."

Harry took the words like a slap to the face, and Ron's chest heaved at the adrenaline spiralling around his lungs.

Soon enough it was Ron's turn to falter as he realised the gravity of what he'd said, his palms began to sweat and he felt his throat constricting. Harry rose himself up, schooled his face so expertly that Lucius himself would have been proud, and put up his hand.

"Later," he said.

* * *

><p>Later found Ron stewing amongst piles of torn wrapping paper. Harry was pointedly devoting all of his attention to his daughter and only glanced at Ron when he knew his friend wasn't looking. Nobody else seemed to notice this, too engrossed as they were in the festivities. Even Lucius had been drawn in to the fold by Bill Weasley and his infectious story telling of his many adventures abroad.<p>

"There's one last present under here, right at the back," Ginny said from beneath the Christmas tree. "It's for you Ron," she said, handing over a box wrapped in black paper and gold ribbon.

He took it with a furrowed brow, snapped out of his fearful thoughts for the moment. He opened it up carefully, peered inside and lifted it out. He gaped as he held it up. Mismatched multicoloured chunks of shimmering glass dangled in an intricate pattern from a central lattice of wrought iron.

"What a beautiful chandelier!" Molly gushed. "Who on earth sent you that?"

Ron didn't seem to hear her, he laughed lightly and shook his head to himself, hypnotised by the thing. Gently he rearranged it in it its box. Only Harry saw him slip a piece of paper from the box into his sleeve.

"Ron?" Charlie prompted.

"What? Oh, uh-"

He was interrupted by a scream of distress as two of the children collided into each other. Fleur and Ginny crowded around them and made soothing sounds. Jarred back to his senses, Ron's heart was having palpitations and he could practically feel Harry's eyes drilling into the side of his head.

Ron dared to look over at his friend and found not a hardened glare, but slumped shoulders and sad defeat. For once in his life he didn't think he could stomach dinner.

"Luncheon is served," Squeaked an elderly house elf, apparently unperturbed by the commotion.

* * *

><p>Christmas lunch at Malfoy Manor was a sight to behold. Dozens of dishes covered the surface of the long dining room table. A roaring fireplace warmed them from the centre of the back wall, and just as they tucked in to eat, a soft fluttering of snow began to fall from the vaulted ceiling, coasting downwards and missing the table itself as if by magic.<p>

Lucius stared up at it and seemed paralysed by some unknown emotion. The children reached out their hands to try to catch it.

"How on earth..." Ron breathed as Lucius wiped a stray tear from his face and smiled at Harry.

* * *

><p>Later in the evening, Ron stole himself away to the now-dark lounge of the manor with only his thoughts and the subtle Christmas tree lights for company. The kids were in bed and the other adults were conversing over a glass of sherry in the drawing room.<p>

The door opened a crack and spilled light over his shoulder.

"Alright?"

Ron sighed, "No."

Harry came over and sat on the couch beside him, he reached down for the box on the floor between them, "Can I take a look?"

Ron's heart seized up as Harry carefully lifted the chandelier from its bed of tissue paper. He held it up to the Christmas tree to admire the way the dim lights warmed through the individual glass droplets.

"Its exquisite," Harry murmured, "There's a lot of time and heart poured into it, you can tell"

Ron started, "You can have it if you want it."

Harry shook his head and looked him in the eye, "He made it for you Ron, not me."

Ron's head dropped.

"May I?" Harry gestured to Ron's shirt pocket.

Ron couldn't bring himself to speak, his earlier foolish words weighing down on him. Harry helped himself to the piece of paper he'd seen Ron hide away earlier and carefully flattened it out.

_Ron, _

_I'm not sorry for the things I said the other night, but I am sorry for the way we left things. I hate fighting with you and I hope we can find away to get past this. _

_Anyway, I wanted you to have this._

_It's my way of saying thank you for keeping your word. I know it's difficult for you. _

_Thank you for respecting my wishes and for honouring my trust. Without it who knows where I'd be right now. Your patience and kindness these past few months have meant more to me than I'd have you believe. _

_So from one old friend to another - Thank You._

_Merry Christmas from me and mine, to you and yours._

"He told me to stay away from him," Harry said eventually. At Ron's confused look he added, "We've been wandering into each other's dreams lately."

"He's messed up Harry."

"I know."

Ron couldn't find any words that didn't seem trite so he kept them all to himself.

"You were fighting?"

Ron rubbed his eyes and nodded.

"What over?"

Ron shook his head firmly, still looking at the floor rather than his friend.

"Can you bring him home?"

"I don't know Harry, he needs time. Drag him back here and he'll lose it completely."

Harry put his head in his hands and sighed.

"I'm trying, you know that right? I didn't do this to hurt you - you're my best friend."

"I know," Harry said again.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Sorry once again for the re-edit, but I hope you'll agree that this is faaaaaaar better than the original version.**

**Let me know what you think?**

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	12. Nocturnal

**A/N:**

**Meep! I'm going to apologise for the cliffhanger right now...**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and day-old-pizza.**

* * *

><p>After the average Weasley hurricane, Lucius often found that a radiant sense of peace would drape itself over his little family, and so it had that Boxing Day morning.<p>

The manor had all but emptied and the house elves were drunk on leftover eggnog. He saw Astrid playing outside on her new training broom, catching snowflakes in her mouth and hands, while Harry and Ron observed her from the conservatory with warm mugs of mulled wine, silent in the way that old friends could be without seeming awkward.

And Lucius had hope. Hope was snow in the dining room on Christmas Day.

* * *

><p>Later that evening, Ron let his legs swing from his perch on the kitchen counter while Asha chopped enough carrots to feet an army of rabbits.<p>

"How did he do it?" he asked after Draco had taken himself off to his bedroom for an early night.

Asha flourished her knife in the air, "Magic," she said as though it were obvious.

"Isn't that against his rules or something?"

Asha kept her attention to her chopping and didn't turn around, "I don't know if you've noticed Ron, but he breaks rather a lot of his rules for you."

Ron squirmed at this and folded his arms. "Did you teach him how to do that?" he asked as she swept the contents of the chopping board into a huge pot of stew and stirred.

"What do you mean?"

"Well it's not exactly wizard magic, is it? Being able to make things appear out of thin air on the other side of the country? Is it a firefoot thing?"

Asha turned at that, "What did you just call me?"

"A f-" Ron began with a confused look.

Asha brandished her wooden spoon at him, oblivious to the gravy dripping onto the tiled kitchen floor.

"My people find that term highly offensive."

"I'm sorry, I-" Ron cut himself off and leaned forward, "Well what are you then?"

"I'm an elemental."

"Right..." he said slowly, as though drawing the word out would give him time to understand. It didn't.

"Our magic is no different than yours; you wizards have just bastardised your understanding of it."

"'You wizards'..."

Asha sighed and put her spoon down on the counter.

"I didn't mean that to sound so harsh, it's a touchy subject."

"I'm getting that."

"I haven't taught Draco anything about magic. I think Cal might have shared some things with him, back when they were together."

Ron felt somewhat sick at that thought.

"What sort of things?"

Asha shrugged and turned back to her chopping board and the pile of leeks next to it.

"Basic stuff, things we're taught as children - how magic works and how it fits into the world. Knowledge your people have lost over the centuries. I mean, Draco rarely allows himself to get drawn into discussions about that sort of thing, but at the time his magic was starting to get completely unmanageable, he was desperate I think. It was around about that time he started draining out all his pent up power."

"You don't sound like you approve?"

"Cal says it's the lesser of two evils, I say it's not natural," she said with another shrug.

"If he keeps on the way he's going he might not need to do that anymore."

"Dangerous though," she said quietly, lost in her thoughts.

* * *

><p>Draco gazed down at the embossed ivory writing paper and the elegant black curls of handwriting – his handwriting. He read the words in a continuous loop, and then in a pattern of sentences, judging the letter from every angle he could think of. Perhaps the writing was too neat, perhaps the paper too muggle; Then again, maybe it wasn't muggle enough, maybe he should have typed the blasted thing he thought and glanced at the closed laptop sitting neatly on the top right corner of his desktop.<p>

Eventually he shaded his hand over his eyes, placed his good fountain pen back in its case, and forced himself to stop obsessing. He folded the words up into an envelope, carefully wrote out the addressee on the front, and watched it vanish with a cast of his hand.

...

_Dear Father,_

_After all these years I honestly don't know what to say in this letter, only that I feel compelled to send it._

_I imagine that you're not pleased with me for the manner in which I left, or for the length of time I've stayed hidden. I won't make excuses for this, nor will I apologize for it, but I do regret any hurt it has caused you._

_Perhaps you'd find it crass for me to ask how you are? I miss you father, if you'd believe that._

_I wanted you to know that I'm well, but I also need you to know that I'm not ready to return yet, please understand that I may never be ready. I can only presume that this isn't what you want to hear from me, but I ask that you respect it as my decision to make._

_If you wish to write back - not that you have any obligation to do so - leave your response on left side of the mantelpiece in the drawing room at sunset tomorrow._

_With love,_

_Draco._

_..._

"Hey you."

Draco jumped slightly and half turned his head to see the man standing at his shoulder, "Hey, what're you doing here?"

Cal swept his sandy hair from his eyes and moved around Draco to sit on the edge of his desk, "Do I need a reason?"

"I guess not."

Call looked down at his nails and picked some dirt out from under them before looking again at his friend, curiosity winning out eventually, "What was that?"

"A letter to my father," Draco answered levelly.

Cal seemed to consider this for a few seconds, "Oh," was really all he could think of to say.

"Oh," Draco agreed, sinking his chin into his hand and his elbow to the desk, letting his whole body slump forwards with the gesture.

"Matt?"

"That's not my name," Draco mumbled.

Cal almost laughed, "I know that."

"My name is Draco."

"It suits you," Cal offered. "Seems familiar somehow," he added, mulling the name over in his head.

Draco pulled back from the desk and brought both hands to his eyes, "It means Dragon."

"Then it really suits you," Cal prodded his shoulder, "Especially in the morning."

Draco looked up with a smirk and then straightened his back, pulling on an overly serious facial expression, "So, my name is Draco Malfoy and I'm a workaholic."

Cal mocked him with a comical look of shock that earned him a swat upside the head.

"I'm a little bit magic," he added, ducking his head and indicating a small amount with his thumb and index finger. Call rolled his eyes and manoeuvred Draco's arms so that they were spread wide, earning himself another half-hearted smack.

"I fancy men," Draco went on, "I make too much money, I don't understand the point in boiled rice, and I really wish you'd stop looking at me like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're thinking about kissing me."

Cal scratched his non-existent facial hair, "What's wrong with boiled rice?"

"It doesn't taste of anything," Draco said seriously, wrapping his arms around himself. "You can't love me."

"No?"

"I'll hurt you."

Cal shifted his eyes up to the ceiling and blew out a heated breath, "Can I ask you something?" he asked, failing to keep the agitation out of his voice.

Draco hesitated before agreeing with a nod of his head.

"Do you even have _any conception_ of what it is to be loved? _Really_ loved, I mean? Because it's not all movie theatrics and fairytale sunsets."

Draco's jaw was hard-set but to his credit, he didn't turn away.

Cal saw the stubborn glint in those familiar eyes and softened, reaching out, "Sometimes it's just about one night, and one person showing another what they're worth."

Draco gave a bitter snort and curled his lip, "What a line."

Cal was not to be deterred, "Let me show you what you're worth."

Draco stared at him, sizing up the words and what they apparently offered. He let a hand thread through his hair and nodded into it, letting his eyes fall shut for a moment.

He opened them as he was pulled gently to his feet. He slipped his shirt from his shoulders after its buttons had been undone by those careful fingers. He remembered those fingers far too well.

Hands came around the back of his neck, as though to hold his head to the sky like some precious thing; Feet paced him backwards to the side of his bed, and he shuffled himself onto the middle of it, pulling Cal down with him.

He didn't wait for Cal to kiss him, he took hold of the front of his T-shirt and brought their lips together. Cal lifted himself away slowly and turned his attention to a torso littered with dark marks and white lines. He ran his fingers over a perfect circle – an ancient burn - and shifted himself to kiss it softly, watching as it disappeared with a glimmer of gold light. He turned to a long, faded streak - the ghost of a lone fingernail – and repeated his actions.

He went on this way into the night, until long after the flat's heating had clocked off and Draco began to shiver from the cold air and a complete lack of clothing. Only one scar remained: a deliberate looking thing to the side of his stomach, 5 inches long with little silvery branches creeping out from either side. Cal placed his hand on it, pulled Draco up to sit, and kissed his forehead.

"That's what you're worth," he murmured.

* * *

><p>Harry smoothed the paper with both hands and stared at the words written in his husband's hand. He looked up at Lucius and cocked his head to one side, "What are going to say?"<p>

Lucius paced back and forth between Harry's desk and the fireplace across from it, "That I'm not angry with him for one thing," he said with a gesture of his hand before bringing it to his face and rubbing his mouth.

"That's wise," Harry nodded.

"And that he has a husband and a daughter to come home to, for another."

Harry cast his eyes back down to the letter, "He's not ready to come home. He's quite clear on that."

Lucius stopped in front of the desk and gave him a calculating look, "I can't lie to my son."

"I'm not asking you to lie."

"He has a right to know," Lucius insisted.

"He has a right to be happy," Harry returned.

"You make him happy."

Harry scraped his hair away from his face, "You'll never hear from him again. He'll think you're playing some twisted game with him, he'll think you're punishing him for leaving."

"So I'll arrange to meet with him, you can come with me. He can't refute what's right in front of him."

"Yes he can," Harry said, exasperated, "I've been in his head Lucius. If he sees me he'll think he's mad."

Lucius leaned down, "I'm the one who convinced him of that in the first place," he said softly, "He'll listen to me, he has to."

"I don't know."

Lucius placed a hand on his son-in-law's shoulder, "Let me try."

Harry hunched his back and reluctantly agreed.

* * *

><p>"Where's his royal highness this morning? It's 9.30 already."<p>

Richard smiled mysteriously as he spread his toast with cherry jam, "Well I stuck my head in the room about an hour ago but he was asleep in the arms of a handsome young man so I figured I'd let him be."

Asha rolled her eyes, "Ha ha, you're funny." At Ron's puzzled look she explained – "Draco doesn't share his bed with anyone; he's quite precious about it."

Richard didn't bother to disagree, any other morning she'd have been right, "So, what did you crazy kids get up to last night?"

Ron felt a blush sweep up his neck and invade his cheeks.

Richard quirked an eyebrow, "'Nuff said."

Breakfast milled on, Asha and Ron caught each other's gaze every other second, and Richard looked smug through it all. Just as they had started to clear away the plates, Draco emerged through a crack in his bedroom door.

"Morning sunshine," Richard greeted him.

Draco mumbled something incoherent and padded over to the fridge - where he proceeded to gulp down a pint of milk straight from the carton.

Asha stared at him, "Uh, Draco?"

"Mmm?"

"You're glowing."

"That's nice," he said, as though he'd barely registered the statement.

"No, seriously, you're skin's freaking luminescent!"

Draco looked down, but his eyes were unfocussed and he seemed decidedly unconcerned, "Every inch of it feels... loved," he sighed.

His three friends looked at each other.

"All the same, maybe you should... lie down?" Richard suggested.

"Mmm," Draco hummed, padding over to the couch and flopping down onto it. With a wave of his hand, the woollen tartan blanket draped over the back of the couch resettled over him instead.

"Night."

Richard, Ron and Asha looked at each other again.

"That's some brother you've got there," Richard said, hiding his smirk behind a gulp of coffee.

Asha's mouth hung open for a moment.

"Draco?" she called over.

He shifted slightly, trying to embed himself further into the overstuffed cushions, "Mmm?"

"Was Cal here?"

"He left a little while ago," Draco replied through a yawn.

"How? We've been sitting right here."

Draco lifted his arm to dance his fingers in the air before letting it drop back to the floor. Shortly afterward, the only response she could get out of him was a happy snore. Eventually she gave up and left for her rehearsals. Ron departed citing a migraine, Richard suspected that had been an excuse but he wasn't about to complain – rarely did he find himself with a whole day off, no plans or obligations whatsoever, and the TV completely at his mercy.

Countless hours of golf later Draco finally began to stir, "What is it with you and that guff?"

"It's golf dear, not guff."

Draco scrunched up his nose, "What time is it?"

"Back of four, you've slept the whole day away."

Draco stretched from his toes to his fingertips and arched his back like a cat, "I'm so sleepy."

Richard considered him for long enough that Draco noticed and squinted at him.

"You've been doing a lot of magic lately, I wonder if it's taking its toll..."

"It's not that, I just feel... content? I guess that's the right word."

Richard muted the TV and clasped his hands together, "I'm glad to hear that. I've been worried."

"Don't be," Draco said, curling himself in cushions and blankets again so that only the top half of his face was visible.

"You sure you know what you're doing?"

Draco nodded, "I'll be careful," he said in a small voice.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

They slipped back into silence for a time, Richard was ready to return to his golf when Draco sat up and disentangled himself from his makeshift bed.

Appearing far more alert but somewhat guilty, he said, "I wrote to my father last night."

Richard took a deep breath but didn't give any other sign of outward disapproval. "What did he say."

"Well," Draco looked over, out of the window, "It's sunset, so I'm about to find out."

He drew in a deep breath of his own and shook his hair into his eyes before chancing a look at his friend. Another few breaths and he willed his father's reply into his waiting hands.

_..._

_Draco,_

_It's such a relief to hear from you!_

_I'm not angry with you for leaving, no one is. I know you have your reasons for staying away, I don't want an apology from you, son._

_I find it wonderful that you ask how I am, and to answer your question, I'm well - all the better now that I find myself writing to you. I miss you too._

_I'm glad that you're okay, and yes, saddened that you can't come home. There are things that you should know. Things that it might be better for me to tell you in person, if you'd consent to that?_

_All of my love,_

_Your father._

_..._

Richard studied Draco's expressions as he read. He caught the small, sad smile, and the guilty chewed lip. But it was the irritated sigh that followed them that concerned him the most, "What's wrong?"

"He wants me to meet him."

"Is that a good idea?"

"No."

"So... just tell him you're not ready."

Draco grumbled at this, "I already did, apparently I was too subtle about it."

He took himself to his desk, snatched up a fresh sheet of paper and wrote with frustrated purpose - this time unconcerned with the aesthetics involved - pausing only briefly to accept the cup of fresh tea Richard brought him.

...

_Dear Father,_

_I don't mean this to sound abrupt or ungrateful, but I don't want to know._

_I don't want anything to do with your world, I'm sorry._

_Actually, I take that back, I'm not sorry. Staying away has kept me safe and sane for 7 years. I've learned to be ruthless when it comes to protecting myself, I wouldn't have made it otherwise. And trust that I have made it - the life I've built here is one that I won't give up without a fight. I have my own family now. I have love and am loved. I don't want to have to protect myself from you anymore father, but I will. Please don't force me to._

_Draco_

_..._

* * *

><p>Draco found that he couldn't sit still after that, he turned his attention to the growing mountain of paperwork that had come in to his email inbox over Christmas and worked through the night into the next day. When the sun rose he took his laptop through to the kitchen table and worked on from there until Richard and Asha rose for breakfast.<p>

He allowed himself to be fed and waved his flatmates off to work. With his own work in hand, but still restless, he pulled down the box of photographs he'd been meaning to sort for at least the past year from the top shelf of the cupboard in the spare room. Cross legged on the livingroom floor, he sprawled them around him, laughing at the more ridiculous ones.

He'd just packed them all back up again in good order when he heard the front door click open.

"Ron?"

"Yeah, it's me," a disembodied voice called from halfway down the stairs.

"I'm sorry we didn't get a chance to talk yesterday, I was a bit out of it."

"You wrote to Lucius," Ron said bluntly.

Draco shrugged from his place on the floor, "Felt the urge."

"You could have _told_ me."

"I thought it would be easier for you to not know," Draco said, pulling himself to his feet and hoisting the box of photographs up onto his hip. "I didn't want you to have to _act_ ignorant. At least, not any more that I assume you already have to," he explained on route to replace the box in its cupboard.

"That's actually quite considerate," Ron admitted once Draco had returned.

"I can be. Occasionally," Draco said with a crooked smile, curling up in a turquoise armchair and motioning for Ron to sit down.

"He wants you home."

"I gathered that." Draco rubbed his face, "He said there were things I should know..."

Ron eyeballed him and nodded slowly.

"Important things?"

"Yes. Extremely important things. I've told you that too."

Draco looked as though he found the whole situation darkly comical, "You're itching to spill the beans," he taunted.

"I'm worried what you'll do when you eventually find out and you ask me why I didn't just strap you into a chair and force you to listen."

Draco's eyes narrowed and his voice lowered, "You wouldn't dare."

"I think you'll make me wish I had."

Draco examined his hands, "Will it hurt me? This highly important news?"

Ron squirmed, "At first, yes. But-"

"Then I still don't want to know."

"You're stronger than you think you are Draco."

"I'll be the judge of that I think."

"If you won't listen to me you should listen to him. He's-"

"Stop it! Right now! Who's side are you on anyway?"

Ron stood up and towered over him, "Yours. Everyone I _know_ is on your side, including your father."

"Well, you needn't be. I'm on my side. I'll decide what's best for me!" Draco snapped, before calming himself, "And right now, what's best for me is bed."

"Draco-"

"No," he held up his hand and shook his head, "Seriously Ron, I've been up for 18 hours straight, I can't think properly and it's making me a crabbit bastard. Just... let me sleep before I say something I don't mean. I don't want another argument with you, okay?"

Ron looked down at his feet and nodded his assent.

Draco slept like a sack of wet sand – heavy and dreamless. When he awoke again it was dark, he was starting to feel nocturnal. He wandered through the flat and called for Richard and Asha but neither were there, a note on the kitchen table explained that they were at the theatre, it was opening night of Asha's new act - something he'd forgotten and now felt very guilty for – and they hadn't had the heart to wake him.

Wandering back into his bedroom he opened the curtains and sat on the window seat, gazing up into to black sky and the stars that dusted it. He thought of a day many years ago now: he'd stood in the window of his first flat, and though the view was far from spectacular, he'd found courage in it somehow.

That memory made up his mind and he called for his father's reply. In his haste, he hadn't left instructions for one in his last letter, but his father was a smart man, he'd know that if Draco were looking for a response the obvious place to leave it would be where he'd requested the last one be left.

And yet, nothing came. His hand felt fuzzy, as though it couldn't quite catch what was there. He tried again, with a bit less focus and a bit more will, and this time his fingers clasped around a wad of paper. A newspaper, an old one by the colouring.

He turned it over to see the top half of the front cover. The headline read 'Hero gives birth to healthy baby girl', but Draco didn't register that. He was transfixed by the photograph underneath it, where an exhausted looking Harry yawned for the camera and stoked a tiny face as it smiled up at him.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**It's all happening!**

**Next chapter ASAP and it's filled with drama!  
><strong>

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	13. Multicoloured Carnage

**A/N:**

**Super fast update! I reckon this must be some kind of update. I totally put it down to actually publishing my progress bit by bit on LJ.**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and toothache gel.**

* * *

><p>Asha swung around Richard in the alleyway behind the theatre, pulling at the sleeves of his overcoat and kicking up stones with her electric-blue kitten heels. Richard's grin was wide as he congratulated her and threw his arm around her shoulders, almost bowling her over in the process. They laughed, stumbled, wheezed, and by the time Asha managed to answer her ringing mobile phone, tears streamed down her face. She fought to get her vocal cords to cooperate but in the end wasn't given the chance.<p>

"Have you heard from Draco?"

"Since when did you start calling him that?" Asha asked as she slapped Richard affectionately to get him to shush.

"It's not important," Cal told her, "Have you spoken to him?"

"No, not in a while - Behave," she chastised Richard, who had started to waltz her imaginary replacement in circles around her, "He was asleep when we left the flat. Opening night was a resounding success by the way, thanks for asking."

"I'm sure you were great. Listen-"

"Actually, I think you'll find I kicked ass."

"Sis will you just shut up for a second!" The brief pause her brother allowed gave her time to catch on to his serious tone. "Draco phoned me about an hour ago, he was asking all these questions about Hong Kong and then he went all quiet and he wouldn't tell me what was wrong. I asked if he wanted me to come over, he said he needed to be alone. I let him be, but the more I think about it the more worried I get."

"Why would he be asking about Hong Kong?" Asha asked, before deciding there wasn't time. "Never mind. We'll head home and check on him. I'll call you once I've spoken to him, okay?"

"Thanks Ash."

With that, she grabbed Richard's arm and pulled him further down the lane, behind a rubbish skip.

At Richard's bewildered look she explained, "Something's up with Draco," before apparating them both home.

The scene that awaited them was bomb-stuck. Broken glass littered everything in tiny shards and great spears, cutting out into the chemical stench of lingering alcohol.

"What the fuck!"

"Draco!"

Richard and Asha picked their way through the flat calling out for any answer that would come, but none did. Two empty bottles of vodka were keeled over at the foot of Draco's bed; Asha saw them and took hold of Richard's arm again.

A heartbeat later, ice smashed against their skin, robbed the air from their lungs, and heavy fabric slipped through Asha's clumsy fingers.

"Fuck! Asha? Draco?" Richard spluttered as his lungs were invaded, and the sight of his head disappearing under the water fast did nothing to abate Asha's panic.

She reached for him but he was drifting beneath her reach, pulled down by the weight of his thick wool coat. She blinked and grit her teeth, moving her arms back and forth in the water to keep herself afloat, feeling them burn with blood as she did. She reached out with her feet and found something too heavy and sodden to be anything other than human, she hooked her leg around it to pull it closer.

White blond hair told her it was Draco as she held his slumped form to her chest. His head lolled forward, lips brushing the foul sea. Richard's arms flailed as he resurfaced - sans overcoat. He reached out for a lifeline, Asha grabbed his hand and they landed in a heap on the shingle beach.

Richard extracted himself from underneath Draco as Asha plastered his hair away from his forehead and opened his eyelids with her thumbs.

"Draco! Draco? Richard, call an ambulance!"

Richard was holding his body off the ground with both arms, coughing and retching. "To where? I don't know where the fuck we are!"

"That's the North Atlantic, or the Norwegian Sea, I'm not sure," Asha gestured, wincing.

"Yeah, that's bloody useful."

Asha didn't hear him, she was pushing down on Draco's chest and breathing into his mouth at intervals. Richard heaved himself to Draco's side and pleaded with him, railed at him, but it was hopeless.

"Get off a second," Asha said and placed a single hand on Draco's chest. With a crack, his whole body jerked and water spouted from his mouth like an unclogged drain.

"I'm not sure I should have done that," she chewed her lip as she held his face to the side and felt for a pulse, relieved to find one at least. "I can get us back to your car, here are your keys," she tossed them at him just as soon as they appeared in her hand, "You'll need to drive to the hospital."

"You can't just zap us straight there?" Richard asked as she breathed a few more lungfuls of air into Draco's mouth.

"We can't just appear out of thin air in the middle of A&E!"

Richard shook some sense into himself, "Okay, okay, let's go then."

* * *

><p>Draco's head lay back on a crisp white hospital-issue pillow, eyes shut, but breathing steadily and on his own. Richard took up sentry position in the chair beside his still form. Asha had been perched at Draco's feet until a stern looking nurse had ordered her off the bed.<p>

"Why would he do this?"

"Cal said he phoned him asking questions about Hong Kong, does that mean anything to you?"

"No," Richard said as he stroked Draco's face with the backs of his fingers, "I knew all this magic was a bad idea."

"I didn't hear you complaining when it saved his life," Asha hissed.

Richard hung his head, "I didn't mean it like that and you know it."

Asha looked off down the corridor, thinking of the payphone she'd seen in the main atrium. Her mobile was waterlogged and didn't look set to make a meaningful recovery, "I should call Cal back, let him know what happened."

Richard nodded without taking his eyes off Draco, "He's going to need his things when he wakes up. Clean clothes..."

"Yeah."

"You should go get some sleep too." He said it softly enough, but Asha caught an insistence in his voice.

"You need it as much as I do," she pushed back.

"One of us should stay here. It's probably better that it's me," he said, the guilty flicker in his eyes confirmed what Asha had suspected – he didn't want her there when Draco woke up. He wanted to get a measure of their friend's frame of mind first, alone.

"I'll be back in a few hours then."

Back in the flat Asha did her best to ignore the multicoloured carnage. She took a deep breath as she stepped into Draco's room, intent on pulling together his things into his overnight bag before the resolve left her.

On closer inspection, she found that the room had been disturbed in more ways than the rest of the flat. Behind the bed, a floorboard had been prised up and beside it sat a small, beautifully carved, wooden casket. The lid was open and inside she found a broken chain – she thought it looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers to it the break was so clean. With the chain was a silver ring, which have must have been engraved with magic because the dragon etched there danced around the band as if to its own music. Finally there was a plastic wristband, from the date she could tell it was from Draco's first stint in hospital after his ordeal in the old woods not so many miles away. She shuddered.

On the bed was a newspaper, edges curled and ink faded. She saw that name, 'Harry'. Oh that name. And then another name caught her eye, 'Family friend, Ronald Weasley, told this reporter...'

Her eyes sparked with white rage.

She smacked the newspaper down on the lacquered hardwood surface in front of Ron and paid no mind to her new, more elaborate surroundings.

"What have you done!" she growled into his ear.

Ron jumped in shock, "Asha? What are you _doing_ here?"

She pointed at the offending article on the table, "What did you do!" she repeated.

"I-" Ron caught sight of the newspaper just as Asha caught sight of Harry, sitting across from him.

"You," she snarled.

Harry put up his hands in protest, looking from her to the paper alarmed.

"Asha, I didn't do this. I wouldn't do this," Ron insisted, holding up the paper for good measure.

"You then," she accused Harry instead, "He told you-"

"He didn't tell me anything, I figured it out for myself," Harry stood up and snatched the paper out of Ron's hand, "And I wouldn't be this fucking stupid," he added, storming out of the room.

Ron and Asha followed him to another room where a little girl with long blond hair sat in the lap of an older man with similar features. Both carried a striking resemblance to Draco, if in slightly different ways.

"Harry," Lucius smiled and gestured to the book in his hand, "We were just-"

Harry cut him off, "Astrid honey, can you give Daddy a minute alone with your Grandpa?"

She looked at him with big, bright, green eyes, "But Daddy-"

"Astrid," Harry said firmly.

"Yes Daddy," she said and hopped down from her Grandpa's lap. Out of habit, Ron reached out to pat her head as she passed him to leave and she gave him a small smile.

Lucius must have sensed something in the air because he stood up as Harry closed the door and cast what Asha assumed to be a silencing charm with a flick of his wrist. He dropped the paper at Lucius' feet and stood in front of him waiting, "Why?"

Lucius' face hardened in defiance, "Because he needed to know."

"Like this?" Harry demanded of him, pointing at the floor.

Asha looked from them to Ron, seeking out his eyes. "You didn't?"

"Of course I didn't, I gave him my word," Ron's whole face was creased in hurt.

"You!" Lucius snarled, stabbing an outreached finger in his direction," I welcomed you into my _home_, I _defended_ you, and all along-"

"Not all along!" Ron protested.

"How could you do this to Harry!"

Ron's face was red and his clenched knuckles were white, he opened his mouth to shout back but Harry got there first.

"Because he made your son a promise."

Lucius turned back to Harry, "You were in on this?"

"I figured it out a few days ago."

Lucius bristled, twitched in fury. "You're supposed to be his husband! You made a vow to bring him home and you just _leave_ him out there in the wilderness! He's supposed to be with his family! Don't you care-"

"I _am_ his husband," Harry ground out, seemingly unaware that the lights had begun to flicker in the room as he visibly struggled to keep his voice low and level. "When I asked him to marry me, it was because I knew I couldn't stand to spend another day apart from him. And when he accepted I thought it was forever, but almost every day since then has torn me to shreds."

"Then you should have done something about it!"

Harry's nostrils flared, inanimate things started to grumble around them. As a true testament to her fear, Asha absently sought out Ron's hand with her own and entwined their fingers.

"Ron's been my friend a lot longer than I've been your son-in-law Lucius. I trust him and I respect his judgement. Not only that, but I trust Draco's judgement, and both of them have made it clear that he wasn't ready for this!" Harry stepped forward and poked a finger at Lucius' chest, "But you just couldn't fucking listen could you? You always have to know what's best, and look where it got you last time?

"You think I don't want him home as much as you do? You think I love him any less now than I did when I crawled through the pits of hell to get back to him?" Harry had given up on controlling his voice and had settled for barking directly into Lucius' face.

"I've spent 7 years doing little else but scour the globe for him, you think that was easy?" The contents of the room were really starting to rattle now and Lucius took an instinctive step backward, Harry was screaming so loud it hurt his eyes, let alone his ears, "My daughters first words? Her first magic? The countless nights that I've not been the one to tuck her up in bed? You think missing those things has been a fucking picnic for me!

"I've broken my back to get him back here, so don't you dare _stand_ there and tell me that I don't – fucking - care!"

The last word splintered off in every direction like a curse, the wards Harry had placed around the room exploded with a side-order of acrid black smoke. Half the contents of the room exploded with them and Ron had to duck to avoid a letter-opener to the head.

"Fuck," Harry said under his breath.

A small knock at the door caught all of their attention, "Daddy?"

"We'll just be a minute sweetheart," Harry called through the closed door before turning back to Lucius with narrowed eyes, "You," he pointed at him, "Are going to go with her," he pointed at Asha without looking at her, "And so help me you're going to fix this!"

"No."

Harry turned to Asha, all at once losing his hard edge as he took in the red rims of her eyes and her exhausted posture, "No?"

"The only people going anywhere near Draco for the foreseeable future are his family," Asha said carefully. Turning to Lucius she added, "That doesn't include you."

"Asha-" Ron started.

A gasp from the doorway interrupted them, Astrid stood with her hand clasped over her mouth, "Daddy, you broke everything."

Harry crouched down to her level, "Yeah, Daddy's silly huh? Listen honey, can you play outside for a bit? I need to sort a few things out here and then I'll come get you."

Astrid looked unsure. She took a step closer to her father, avoiding a broken picture frame with her bare foot. "Daddy, why are you mad at Grandpa?"

"Astrid," Harry placed clasped hands to his lips, "Help Daddy out, please."

"Okay Daddy," she said finally, coming one step closer to kiss her father's cheek and then departing again, closing the door behind her.

Ron was the first to speak, "Ash, you can't just-"

"It's not me you have to convince. Do you know what he did when he read this?" she picked the discarded newspaper up off the floor and rolled it up, "He got blind drunk, apparated to the Outer Hebrides, and walked out into the sub-zero Atlantic."

"What?"

Asha pointed the makeshift baton at Lucius, re-establishing her anger just by looking at him, "Now, I don't know how well you _think_ you know your son after all these years, but Draco doesn't drink, he doesn't apparate, and he doesn't tend to view drowning himself as a viable pastime!"

Ron grabbed her arm and pulled her back, "Is he okay?"

"His heart stopped beating and his lungs were full of seawater, of course he's not okay, he fucking died!" she snapped and instantly regretted it. "I brought him back..." she added quietly, inwardly glad to see the pain on all of their faces diminish slightly.

"I'm angrier than I've ever been in my entire life right now, but Richard is six hundred miles past angry," she continued, turning back to Lucius, "And if you step foot in our home without his express permission he'll rip out your throat with his bare hands and fracture your jaw for good measure."

Lucius glared at her, "You think your little friend has the power to keep me away from my own son?"

"You'd be surprised what Richard is capable of when it comes to Draco. You have no idea what they've been through - what Richard's been though these past years to keep Draco safe and well? He'll do whatever he thinks is necessary to pull Draco through this, and anyone that gets in the way will be written off as... collateral damage."

Lucius had the look of a battered Rottweiler, he itched to lash out but his eyes showed he knew he couldn't suffer another beating. Ron almost pitied him, he wondered if he would reach this level of arrogant stupidity if Hermione kept his own kids away from him for long enough.

But Harry was deathly pale and looked ready to collapse, and that just made him want to thump Lucius in spite of his 'almost pity'.

"Draco won't-" Ron tried.

"Draco will _let_ him," Asha said firmly.

Ron turned her to face her, "But you can to talk to him. You _have_ to talk to him."

She shook her head and looked up at him, "You don't understand do you? Me and Cal - magic - we're part of the wider problem here," she wrapped her arms around herself and studied Harry with sad eyes, "I have to go," she whispered.

Carnage soon replaced carnage and she couldn't help but feel depressed as she gazed around this place that used to look like her home. In Draco's room, paper still in hand, she curled up on the floor, clearing a patch in the mess to do so.

With her free hand she found the ring and the chain and the hospital band, held them close to her heart and cried.

She cried because she couldn't bring herself to do anything else, for so long that she felt as though her guts had been hollowed out, and that was how Cal eventually found her.

"Hey, you didn't c- what the hell happened?" He looked down at her, "Where's Draco?"

"He's in hospital."

Cal looked around, eyes settling on the paper, "This is the guy I met in Hong Kong..."

He furrowed his brow for a moment before crouching down to pick his sister up off the floor. He gently removed the things she clutched in her hands and placed them on the desk.

"Get some sleep little sister. I'll put the flat right," he told her, and she allowed herself to be led to her own bed.

* * *

><p>Asha's eyes fluttered open, and for the briefest of moments - until it all came crashing back to her - her bed was warm bliss.<p>

Somehow, she found the courage to face the rest of the flat. Cal was at the kitchen table with two mugs of tea and she pulled up the chair opposite him.

"Thanks for sorting the flat out. What did you do with it all?"

"Banished it," Cal said without looking up.

She bit her lip, "I was thinking he might want it repaired..."

Her brother shook his head, "He broke it for a reason."

Asha nodded slightly at this, thinking that it probably made sense.

Cal turned his attention to the newspaper that had caused so much grief. He thumbed the corner of the front page. "I've been reading up on this guy. Did you know he's some kind of Wizarding golden boy?"

Asha wrapped her hands around her mug of tea and shrugged.

"Saved the world, returned from the dead, carried a child... I could never have competed with that."

Asha desperately wanted to refute that but couldn't find any words that wouldn't -somehow- sting. She closed her mouth quietly and said instead, "I don't understand how this could happen. How could Draco have a child and not know about it?"

Cal looked thoughtful, "He told me – this 'Harry'," he frowned, "That they'd been in love, and that he'd had to leave, and that it took him much longer than he'd intended to get back. He said that by the time he came home Draco was very sick, that he couldn't tell what was real anymore." Cal stalled, "He even used his name, isn't that a kicker? And the other day it didn't even register..."

"This isn't your fault Cal," Asha said as she reached out to touch his arm.

"No, but I could have..." Asha waited patiently as Cal pinched the bridge of his nose, "There could have been one less thing for him to feel guilty about."

Asha was sure there was more but her brother had fallen silent again, she searched his face for answers; "He told me he loved me," Cal said finally.

"Cal-" but he shook his head and tapped the paper again with an insistent finger.

"He _said_ that he underestimated how sick Draco was, he thought he could fix it - that he _had_ fixed it, but he was wrong, and one morning he woke up and Draco was just... gone. He said he'd been looking for him ever since... I think that's the watered down 'muggle' version of the story, we were in a muggle bar after all..."

"So when he said he went away, what he meant was... he died..."

They sat in silence sipping their tea until Cal pushed his chair back and stood.

"I'm not going to be around for a while. I think it's for the best right now. He's got it hard enough as it is without me being around to complicate things."

"You're abandoning him now? At a time like this?"

"I'm not abandoning him, or you. I'm giving him space to come to terms with all this. You both know how to reach me if you need to."

Asha stood to look him in the eye, "You won't stay away forever though, will you?"

Cal pulled her into a tight hug and stroked her hair, "I love you sis," he whispered and disappeared from her arms.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Whatcha Think?**

**PS - TCU14 - I normally try to stick to that whole site rule thing about not posting individual review responses within chapters, but I always feel really bad for not being able to thank you via PM for reviewing. So - Thank you, I'm glad you like it.  
><strong>

**I'm glad all of you are sticking with me for the journey, I love you all for that.  
><strong>

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	14. Dust

**A/N:**

**What's all this? Another super-fast update!  
><strong>

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and squashed-fly slices.**

* * *

><p>"Harry?" Lucius ventured. Met by silence he tried again, "Son?"<p>

Harry glared up at him from his sitting position behind his desk, "I'm not your son," he said, and returned his attention to the parchment in front of him.

"I don't know how to make this right," Lucius said quietly, hand grasping the corner of the desk, "I'm sorry."

"What exactly are you sorry for?"

"For being arrogant enough to think that I could yield him the way I could when he was a boy."

Harry stopped reading and studied him, "Good answer," he said, deliberately intoning that he didn't quite believe it.

"Are you going to keep her away from me?"

"Astrid?"

Lucius nodded, Harry pursed his lips.

"She's not my property," he said eventually, knowing that the comparison would sting.

"I really am sorry Harry," Lucius said as he turned to leave.

"I know you are," Harry murmured.

* * *

><p>Draco hadn't spoken in three days. Not even when the nurse had taken it upon herself to lecture him, or when Richard had bundled him home from the hospital, or when the Hogmanay festivities had lit up the city's skyline.<p>

In his darkened bedroom, Richard sat with him patiently, holding one-sided conversations and ensuring he ate. Asha was glad to note that her presence didn't seem to upset him, but she found it horrifying to look into those glassy eyes of his. As such, she busied herself with household errands - cooking, cleaning, and liaising with Mr Henderson and Draco's secretary. So it was that when the buzzer rang, she answered it and let Ron up, admiring his courtesy.

"I wasn't sure if I should come."

"I doubt Richard will let you see him," she whispered, leading him through the flat and gesturing for him to pull up a chair at the kitchen table.

"How is he?"

"Well, it doesn't look like he has any lasting brain damage," Asha said with a flicker of guilt, "I electrocuted him. I didn't know what else to do to get his heart going. They do it on the TV with those paddles..."

"You probably saved his life."

"Yeah," Asha shrugged, "Probably. But he's still catatonic... The doctors say it's not physical... that he's still in there, somewhere... How's Harry?"

Ron started at this, not expecting her to ask that, "He's bearing up. Somehow," his eyes dropped to his hands, "How are you?"

"I'm," she gave him a sad smile, "Bearing up."

"Is there anything I can do?"

She shook her head and let the tears start to fall. He put his arm around her and pulled her head to his chest.

"What's this?" he asked and she looked sideways to see him turning Draco's old hospital band around in his fingers. She told him and he furrowed his brows at her.

The door to Draco's bedroom opened and Richard stood there, staring across the living area at them.

"What is he doing here?"

Asha sniffed and pulled herself back, "He came to see how we were."

"That's none of your business," Richard told Ron, "Get out."

"He's only trying to help."

"His help is the reason we're in this mess."

"He didn't do this, Draco's father did."

"I don't give a shit right now Ash," he turned to Ron and extended a finger towards the entrance stairs, "Get out."

Ron pocketed the wristband discretely and held up his palms, "Relax mate, I'm going."

"I'm not your 'mate'," Richard snarled.

Ron weathered it, kissed the top of Asha's head, and made his way past Richards glare. At the foot of the stairs he paused, "I didn't want this. I had to see him in that state for three long years, if I could have prevented this then I would have."

* * *

><p>The leaky cauldron was as charming as ever: The knotted wood of the bar tables had imbibed the colour of many a spilt tankard of mead over the years; the floor was dusty, the light was dusty, the sullen cleaner mopping at the floor with a bucketful of lukewarm swill was dusty.<p>

It had been two days since he'd been thrown out of Draco's flat, but Ron tried to push that out of his mind as he nursed his bottle of butterbeer, waiting.

Harry's eyes darted around the pub, "I shouldn't be here, she won't want me here."

"She likes you."

Harry jerked his head back toward his friend.

"She asked after you the other day," Ron clarified.

Harry remembered the sympathetic gaze Asha had given him before she'd disappeared from his ruin of a drawing room. He didn't want to let himself hope for that.

"What's this all about anyway?" Harry asked.

"I told you, I'll explain when she gets here."

Asha appeared before them in a long grey dress with heavy shadows under her eyes. If not for her lengths of unbrushed strawberry blond hair she might have blended in with the dust.

"How did you get an owl around our wards? Richard's not impressed."

"Sorry, I-" Ron started.

She clucked her tongue, taking a seat, "I said _he_ wasn't impressed, I didn't say I wasn't."

"Confundus charm, sort of," Ron blushed, "I made it forget it was an owl."

Asha flinched, "That poor animal!"

"Only very temporarily," Ron added quickly, "She's perfectly fine now."

Asha relaxed, "Well I guess that's alright then, seeing as it was important," her eyes flickered to Harry, "I assume it _was_ important?"

"I did something," Ron said, taking the plastic wristband out of his pocket and placing it on the table between them all.

"What?"

"I went to the hospital," Ron started, "Specifically, I went to the medical records department, and dug out-"

"You did what! Ron, those records are private, he wouldn't want you rummaging around in them!"

"Asha, calm down," Ron said.

"Well what possessed you!"

Ron bit his lip.

"I'd like to know that too," Harry said with a hard-set jaw.

"I didn't 'rummage' for a start," Ron began, "I just wanted to see if the date on this thing," he indicated the band, "Was some sort of clerical error. You said you didn't know him then, you couldn't be sure."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because it doesn't make sense. Look, he's got enough reason to hate me right now, our friendship is as good as torched, I might as well do _something_ useful while I'm waiting for him to come-to and boot me out of his life."

"Why do you assume-"

"The night I met you, isn't the night I found him."

"What are you talking about?"

Ron wrung his hands. At teeth-pulling pace he explained about the night he'd first found Draco.

"You violated his memories! He's going to _kill_ you!"

"I'm aware of that. I didn't know what else to do, okay? I was trying to avoid the situation we're all in now. Like I said - if he's going to hate me, I might as well try to get to the bottom of this, because something happened to him back then, and I honestly believe that if he has the answers maybe he can finally start to heal. And you can keep your friend. And you can get your husband back."

"You're talking like you think there was some big conspiracy afoot. He was ill, he ran off, and that's tragic, don't get me wrong, but-"

"Harry, when did you find Draco in those woods?"

Harry frowned, "The 24th July," he said slowly, "2001."

Ron held up the band so the Harry and then Asha could inspect the matching date, "I thought that."

"How is that even possible?" Harry asked.

Ron shrugged, "What's more, the paramedics found him in those same woods, in the same state you apparently found him in. According to the records, he was in hospital for weeks afterward."

"He messed up his kidneys pretty bad. They were still pretty messed up when I met him." Asha watched Ron carefully as she said this, relaxing when he paid no notice. Harry on the other hand flinched.

"I took him to Zanzibar, I healed him," Harry said, "Physically at least."

"I know you did mate, but the fact is, you and the hospital have Draco in two places at once, and you're right, that's not possible. At least, not without-"

Asha searched his face, "Not without what?"

"Nothing, it wasn't, that wasn't..."

"Well, whatever's going on, I think we'll find the answers in those woods," Asha said finally, "Will you take us Harry?"

The three of them appeared in the forest moments later. Harry pointed to a spot next to a magnificent oak tree with huge distended roots, "There," he confirmed.

Asha approached it, knelt down and placed her hand on the bark, whispering softly.

"What's she doing?" Harry asked Ron out of the corner of his mouth. Ron gave him two raised eyebrows and shrugged.

She turned to them and frowned, "The tree doesn't make any sense."

"Right..." said Ron, "What?"

"It's just spouting gibberish. They do that sometimes when they get old."

"Are you telling me the tree talks?"

"Of course not, how could it talk, it doesn't have a mouth," she looked at Ron as though he were the unhinged one in this conversation, before sitting down cross-legged on the ground and slumping her chin into her waiting hand, "Cal's better this than I am."

Harry knelt in front of her as she began to drum her fingers lightly on the side of her face in thought.

"Thank you," he said, "For helping, I mean."

She gave him a kind smile, "It feels good to be doing something useful, and I couldn't stay cooped up in that flat with Richard for another five minutes. He's a nightmare when he gets like this."

"Like what?" Harry asked.

"Overprotective. And I'm not exactly flavour of the month right now for letting you in the house," she said to Ron.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get you in any trouble..."

She waved him off, "Don't be. And don't be angry with him either, he's scared too."

"So," Ron said, "How do we get these answers?"

"You said Cal could help didn't you? That's your brother, right? The guy I met in Hong Kong?"

"Small world huh?" Harry didn't quite understand why she sounded sad as she said that. "I said he was better than me at this, I didn't say he could help."

"Wouldn't he? If you asked him? If you explained how important it was?" Harry practically begged, oblivious to Ron's concerned expression. Asha, however, both saw and understood it.

"I wouldn't need to. If it's for Draco, he'll help. I'm just not sure I can ask that of him."

"Oh."

"He left," Asha told Ron, she hoped he'd understand at least partly why because she wasn't about to explain it in front of Harry. Harry, she noted, looked crestfallen. After a few minutes of inward debate, she finally gave in. "I'll call him."

"You will?"

"Yes, wait here," she said, and stood to walk far enough away from them that they wouldn't hear her make the call. He appeared after a few minutes of tense silence, and the pair made their way back over to Harry and Ron, who stood and brushed themselves down.

"Thanks for coming," Harry said to Cal. Ron touched his arm discretely and shook his head; Harry wondered what he'd done wrong.

"Don't mention it," Cal replied, "That one?" he asked his sister, who nodded.

He crossed to it and placed his hand on it. A long time later, when Harry had almost given it up as hopeless, Cal removed the hand and stepped back, breathing heavily. A shimmering gold substance began to trickle out, down the bark and onto the ground, where it began to pool. Eventually it stopped, leaving a misshapen, glimmering manhole on the forest floor.

"What - is that?" Ron asked, pointing at it.

"A memory," Cal said stiffly, "After you," he gestured to Harry.

"We go in there? Like a pensieve?"

"Where do you think wizards got the idea?" Asha smiled.

Inside the memory, Harry found himself on his knees. He'd forgotten the true horror of it until he saw it all again in vivid colour. Draco lay curled under the roots of that great tree, unmoving, barely breathing, blue. He realised he shouldn't have let the others see this; it was a violation of Draco's privacy. And they were appalled, he could see it on their faces and in their posture. Cal even seemed like he might be ready to throw up.

Harry arrived to the memory in a blaze of bright white light, coaxing Draco away from the nightmare and disappearing with him in his arms.

The memory was still but for a few rustling leaves and the wanderings of various bugs. They all looked at each other, uneasy, unsure what to expect next.

And then Draco was there again, curled back up beneath that tree. Not blue, Harry noticed, not half-starved, but-"

"What the fuck happened to him?" Ron asked no one in particular.

Harry knew what he saw, he'd seen it too: Draco was covered in scratches and bruises, the marks Harry had given him the night he'd vanished. But this wasn't that night; those marks hadn't happened yet.

Harry didn't have time to formulate a response; Draco had started to rouse from what might well have been a peaceful sleep. He opened his eyes, confused by his surroundings; Harry's heart wrenched as Draco called his name.

And then his face began to contort in agony. They saw his colour desert him and his body twist in pain. He began to scream, high and shrill, and there were other people, strangers, but Harry couldn't focus on them.

"Stop it! Stop it! I can't watch this, make it stop!" Harry heard himself beg before Cal grasped his shoulder and pulled him out.

They both landed in a sprawl, Harry shaking violently and Cal not faring much better. Cal stood and put some distance between himself and Harry. "I don't think he would ever have wanted any of us to see that."

"No," Harry agreed, looking sideways at Cal, wondering just how well he knew Draco.

"When we met, in Hong Kong," Cal started, "I felt for you, and I admired you."

"Thats-"

"How could you abandon him like that?"

"What? I didn't abandon him, I don't know how he got back there but it wasn't me."

"I'm not talking about that. That was clearly some trademarked magical fuck up of Draco's – he's rather good at those. How could you leave him in the first place? Anyone else, but him... how could you throw him away?"

"I didn't throw him away! I had a war to win, a world to save."

"Well that's the difference between us then isn't it? Because for him, I'd have let the whole world burn."

Harry hoisted himself to his feet, glaring intently at his accuser, "You friends? Your family? Your sister? You'd let them all die? Bullshit!"

Ron and Asha rose up out of the pool and tried to gauge the situation between them.

"Cal? Harry?" Asha said, eyeing them carefully.

"Are you telling me you're in love with my husband?"

"Anyone with half an ounce of sense would be."

"He's my-" Harry began to snarl.

"Husband. Yeah, thanks, I got the memo. I just hope you deserve the honour," Cal gave a mocking bow and turned to Asha, "I did what you asked of me."

She nodded to her feet and a heartbeat later Cal was gone, leaving stunned Harry to ponder his parting words.

* * *

><p>"Are you sure you're alright mate?"<p>

Harry frowned, digging his thumbnail into the edge of table in front of him, "Where they... Are they..."

Ron and Asha glanced at each other but neither answered him. Harry saw the guilt in their flushed cheeks, opting to down his third brandy rather than pry any further.

Ron was talking now, trying to steer the conversation away from this awkward impasse. He and Asha had stayed in the memory long enough to confirm what Harry had already assumed – that the strangers that had come to the aid of Draco's screams had been responsible for the paramedics and Draco's subsequent hospital stay.

"Who would do this to him?"

"Who?" Harry asked, dazed.

"Well someone must have kidnapped him," Ron replied, as though it were obvious.

Asha furrowed her brow, "Why do you assume that?"

"Didn't you see how badly beaten he was? Someone kidnapped him, beat him, dumped him back there, and cursed him."

Asha caught Harry's eye briefly and bit down on her bottom lip, "The marks on him - the scratches, the bruises... they're not relevant."

"Not relevant? He looked like he'd been bloody tortured!"

"Ron, I've seen Draco come home from what he'd consider to be a successful night out with worse than that."

"That still doesn't explain who did that to him! Why are you too looking at each other like that?"

"I did," Harry said quietly.

"What!"

"I wasn't trying to hurt him, well maybe I was, but only to prove a point," Harry grimaced.

"Prove a fucking point? Are you serious?"

Asha signed and rubbed her forehead, "Ron, Draco has a very interesting relationship with pain, and he'll have given as good as he got, so stop being so bloody judgemental, and stop thinking that it had anything to do with him disappearing because it won't have done."

"No?" Harry asked her with a twinge of hope.

"No."

Ron couldn't keep the disgust off his face, "Well what then?"

"Your brother seemed to think," Harry held in a shudder, "That he'd done it to himself."

Asha sat up straight and thought about that, "You said he was a mess when he left you?"

"In the days before, yes."

"In what way exactly?"

"One minute he was in the here and now, lucid, happy. The next he was hallucinating, he kept seeing the forest. He thought I was some kind of demon, that I couldn't be real-"

"I wonder why."

"Ron, shut up. You're saying he was in two minds, he couldn't reconcile them?"

"Yeah..."

"What if... what if his magic reconciled them for him?"

Harry squinted at her and shook his head.

"No hear me out; his mind couldn't cope with the two sets of information, so subconsciously..."

"He travelled back through time and reset his own body to a state of starvation and hypothermia? That's insane!"

"He has precedent for this kind of thing, his magic's completely unhinged. He accidentally turned himself into a hedgehog once, it took us days to talk him down from that one... And look what he did for Ron."

"He didn't turn back time though did he? He just turned back us, me and him," Ron said.

"But that's what happened isn't it? He turned himself back! I mean, not completely, he still had those marks, and I'm not saying he meant to, but..."

"That doesn't explain how he got there in the first place?"

"Travelling through space is commonplace in magical circles, who's to say travelling through time is impossible? You travelled back from the underworld... I hesitate to bring my brother back into the conversation Harry, but he knows Draco's magical issues better than any of us I think. If he thinks Draco did this then..."

* * *

><p>Ron found himself unable to meet Draco's dead eyes as he carefully explained what had happened to him all those years ago and the secrets Ron himself had kept since finding him. The complete lack of any sort of reaction unsettled him; Draco didn't event flinch when Ron revealed that he had violated his memories.<p>

When it was over the silence hung over him like an ominous threat, until eventually Draco turned to his side, his back to Ron, and spoke so softly that Ron had to strain to hear it.

"Just let me sleep."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Review review review! :)  
><strong>

**(You really want me motivated for the next chapter, Harry & Draco come face to face! Finally!)  
><strong>

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	15. Hidden Places

**A/N:**

**It's here! Thank you for the wonderful reviews! You spurred me on! Go Team Awesome!**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and corsets.**

* * *

><p>It was still dark outside as Draco pulled on his socks and buttoned up a crisp black shirt. His shoes were found under the dresser, as usual. He looked through the mirror, tied his tie, swept his hair back, and fought with his cufflinks, just like every other day.<p>

This would _be_ every other day.

"You're up!?" Asha called to him as he took his seat at the kitchen table and folded the morning papers to the financial section with practiced efficiency.

"Sure seems that way."

"You want breakfast? I'm making blueberry pancakes, I know they're your favourite. Or I could do you some eggs, or-"

"Pancakes are fine Ash, stop fussing," he murmured to her, trying to pick out the important headlines and digest them.

Richard hung on to his triangle of toast with his teeth as he took the plate of pancakes from her and sat it in front of Draco, his other hand flattening out a newly opened gas bill as his eyes skimmed over it.

Asha looked between them as they went about their silent morning rhythm, strange purely due to its normalcy in light of everything that had happened this past week. When Draco finally pushed back from the table and stood, she beamed up at him, "You're looking very handsome sweetheart."

"Thanks, I'm sure my filing cabinet will appreciate it. Have you seen my keys?"

"What?"

"My car keys, where are they?"

"You're going to drive there?"

"Of course I'm going to drive. There isn't time for this Ash, I'm going to be late."

"Late for what?" she asked, and then a connection happened somewhere in her brain, "You're not going to work are you?"

Draco sighed and brought his eyes to hers at last, "I have a company to run Asha, a business doesn't just go away because I decide to have a bloody breakdown."

"But-"

"Look, I'm sorry I scared you with my little mental episode, I really am, but I'm fine now. Henderson won't be if he spends much longer trying to pick up my slack. I know your intentions were good but he retired for a reason, I won't be responsible for him having another heart attack."

"You're serious?"

Draco summoned in a deep breath and clucked the back of his bottom lip with his tongue, "Car keys?"

Richard was watching him with that calculating expression he tended to reserve for working hours, "In the bowl next to the TV," he said eventually.

"Thank you."

"How can you encourage this?"

Richard ignored her, "I'll walk you out, should probably make an appearance at the office today myself."

They made it all the way downstairs and outside before either of them spoke.

"Want to meet for lunch?" Richard asked as he clicked the button on his car key and heard the familiar clunk of the locks remotely sliding out of place.

Draco reached his own car and swung the door open. He paused with his hand on the roof, "I don't need you checking up on me."

"I know that, but it's Friday, we always meet for lunch on a Friday."

"Fine. I'll be working out of Mettle Street though."

Richard groaned, the Mettle Street premises were first and foremost a bookshop, though they sidelined in coffee and sandwiches. Like the cafe they'd worked in together as skint university students, the shop had once belonged to Old Man Henderson, and thus now for the most part belonged to Draco. Unlike it however, the staff were uptight, obnoxious, and-

"Ack! You have no decent eye candy working there!"

"I'm so sorry, I'll be sure to write that into the interview criteria for the future."

"One o'clock then?"

Draco gave a stiff nod and slid down into the car. He drove off before Richard had even started his own engine.

The morning was good for little else than a headache as far as Richard was concerned, the firm's partners were not amused by his 'little family emergency', as they so termed it. He'd been handed his balls on a plate and reminded that his family name most certainly wouldn't shield him from his share of the firm's workload. It was useless trying to explain that his recent absence had nothing to do with his blood family. And even if he could it probably wouldn't appease them, because despite what they said, after blowing off the most important brief he'd ever been assigned, Richard was fairly certain his family name was the only thing standing between him and the unemployment line right now.

Now that stuck in the back of his throat.

When he arrived at the imaginatively named 'Mettle Books' it was quiet, but it usually was on a Friday - the students were much too busy thinking about the beckoning weekend nightlife to concern themselves with their education. Richard suspected that Draco had chosen to work from here at least partly because it was the last place Asha would think to harass him – he often complained the shop's office was like a dreary, dank cave where stationary came to die. Also, Ron didn't know this place at all, and that meant no uninvited magical interference. Richard found it irritating that the rest of the world had such trouble reading Draco because stunts like this were painfully transparent to him; he rolled his eyes as he headed through the shop to the staff door.

"Hey you," he said as he entered the depressing little room. Draco's head hung in his hands, staring down at the scattered files on the desk. It looked like he'd been that way for some time.

"Hey," Draco replied at last.

"Talk to me," Richard said, taking up a chair on the opposite side of the desk.

"Is it all real? You, me, this, everything?"

"So you're doing this are you?"

"What?"

"Over analysing the situation like you always do. Trying to figure out every possible angle, every possible trick, be it rational or not."

"It's not irrational," Draco protested.

"Come now," Richard admonished him, "For 7 years you've lived a perfectly normal sane life, I rather think if all this was a figment of your imagination then we'd have had far more excitement, don't you?" Richard raised an eyebrow, waiting for Draco to look up before continuing, "And if you can accept that everything so far has been real, then why would recent events be any different? Do you feel any different today than you did a week ago?"

"No."

"Well then."

Draco chewed his lip but couldn't think of an argument to that.

"So," Richard prodded further, "Say it's all true? What then?"

Draco was struggling with himself, and Richard took his hand, "Come on love, out with the big bad, you might as well say it."

"Part of me doesn't want it to be true," Draco whispered.

Richard nodded, "Why?"

"Because... if it's true, then I left them without a backwards glance. If it's true then the past 7 years of my life..."

"Do you wish you'd never-"

Draco looked startled, "No, god no, but..."

Richard rubbed his thumb over the back of his friend's hand and leaned in, "Draco, all we can do in life is make the best choices we can based on the information available at the time, did you do that?"

Draco was lost in a different spiral of thought, "If..." he swallowed and furrowed his brow, "If... then I've..."

"Yeah, I guess you have. And that's gonna be tough," Richard paused to lift Draco's chin up, "But it's not like you knew what you were doing."

Draco pulled himself away from the touch and wrapped his arms around himself, digging his fingers into his hips.

"I haven't told you anything that you haven't already figured out for yourself, tell me what's really bothering you little dragon."

"I hate it when you call me that."

"You know what I think?" Richard came around the desk and perched on the edge of it. He leaned down to whisper in Draco's ear, "I think you're scared. You don't think you can be someone's husband, someone's father, because you're a cold, ruthless bastard who rarely lets anyone in."

Draco snapped his head around, raw fear fixed in his eyes, but Richard didn't stop, "You could have had any number of relationships if you'd wanted to, plenty of people lose their partners and find a way to move on but you wrap yourself up in excuses because if you're honest with yourself, really honest... you're not capable of love. Even if you wanted to be, even if you tried, it wouldn't work."

"Stop it!" Draco made to push him away but Richard caught his wrist and gripped onto it.

"Is that right?"

Draco was struggling to free his hand but Richard was too determined.

"Don't push me away Draco. I'm not another of your throwaway fuck toys. I know you, I'm _in_ you, I'm the guy who stood up on that ledge with you four years ago, do you remember?"

Draco fell still, "You took my hand and asked me what we were jumping for..." he whispered.

"And you came down because you knew just how serious I was. So look at me and tell me the fucking truth!" Richard brought his free hand to Draco's shoulder and shook him, "Is that what you're afraid of?"

"Yes!"

Richard let go and stepped away; he let the cheap plastic clock on the wall tick on for long enough to get his breathing under control. Draco clutched at his wrist and did the same.

"Every time Asha falls asleep on the couch you fix a pillow under her head so she doesn't wake up with a crick in her neck," Richard said softly, "You call up old man Henderson to ask for advice when you really don't need it because you know he likes to feel needed."

Draco looked up at this but didn't interrupt.

"Every time I'm stuck researching a case until four in the morning you keep me company. You'll say it's because you have a ton of paperwork to catch on but we both know it's because I get distracted when I work alone."

"You can't think in silence..."

"Every year you pay tribute to the child you lost when you were little more than a boy yourself."

Draco brought his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead on them.

"And you pursued a relationship with your father, and with the world you left behind, even though you knew_ -you knew-_ you'd get your fingers burned sooner or later because you didn't think you were strong enough not to lose yourself in the process."

"I'm not."

"Bullshit Draco, you're the strongest person I know. And you think you're not capable of love? You've demonstrated every day since the very first day we met that that's not true."

"It's not enough," Draco whispered.

"No, it's not. Love most certainly doesn't conquer all, and anyone who says otherwise is a doddering old fool. Relationships take trust and compromise, two things which in the majority you suck at. But everyone has to start somewhere, and in that case, you might as well start with love, love."

Draco lifted his gaze after another long silence, lips thinking about a smile, "How do you do that? How do you just take everything and fix it?"

"Natural charm, sharp wit, aristocratic breeding, stunning good looks... take your pick."

Draco threw a ballpoint pen at his head, "Cocky little shit."

"Come on you, let's get you home, you'd better start figuring out what you're going to do about all this," he said, jerking his head toward the door and scooping Draco's coat off the peg on the wall, "For example, this husband of yours, what are his credentials? Why was I not part of the vetting process?"

"We hadn't met yet you pratt. And he's," Draco froze and suddenly felt like his throat was closing off. His heart sped up, his skin started to feel cold and damp.

Richard clapped his arm around him and pulled him onwards, "Also, how do you feel about me dropping your father off a cliff?"

Draco tried to shake off his panic and focus on putting one foot in front of the other, "Don't you have a job to go to?" He'd been trying for humour but the question had come out strained instead. Richard didn't seem to notice.

"I can pull another family emergency. You're more important."

Draco gave him an alarmed look, "They'll fire you."

"Well then I guess I'll just have to work for you Mr Big-Shot, think you can afford me?"

* * *

><p>"What if he doesn't want to come home? What if, after all these years, he just doesn't love me anymore? This Cal guy, the night I met him, he was so... sweet, funny... carefree? Like Draco used to be, back before all of this. What if-"<p>

"Harry don't do this to yourself," Ron interrupted, "He could never take your place, no one could."

"How can you know that?"

"I just do. Draco's said as much."

"Yeah?"

"Shouted actually, we were arguing at the time. He just needs more time."

"Or, you know, a plank of wood to the head."

Ron's whole body jerked round to see Asha standing behind them, "How do you _do_ that?"

She knelt down on the grass, sweeping her long skirt underneath her, "Maybe I'll teach you sometime, just don't tell my father, he gets ever so cranky about sharing the family secrets."

"Is Draco-"

Asha rolled her eyes, "Oh don't even get me started, we might have had a minor disagreement this morning."

"He's talking?"

Asha nodded but didn't elaborate, Harry's stomach turned over.

"Do you mind if I stick around for a bit Harry?"

"I guess not."

Asha pulled off her shoes and curled her toes around a few blades of grass, leaning her head on Harry's shoulder. He gave Ron an awkward glance, unused to this kind of contact. Astrid was dancing around in the sun some way off as the three of them looked on.

"She's beautiful," Asha said with a smile.

Harry felt pride well up in his heart, "Yeah, she is."

As if she might have heard, Astrid looked over and began to skip n their direction, only to stop a few yards away, appearing wary.

"Come over and say hello to the nice lady Astrid."

Astrid took a step back, twisting her fingers in the fabric of her dress, "I don't want to."

"Astrid-"

"It's okay, don't worry about it," Asha said.

"It's not okay, Astrid you know better than to be rude to guests."

"You're the lady that made Daddy mad at Grandpa," she accused.

"Astrid, this lady is a friend of your Papa."

This got her attention, "You are?"

Asha nodded and gave her a kind smile.

"Tell me about him?"

"Well, he's not very well-"

Astrid came over and sat down in front of Asha, "I know that," she huffed, "Tell me something else."

"Okay, well let's see now..." she tapped her chin in thought, "He likes blueberry pancakes. His favourite colour is indigo, I think mostly because he likes saying the word. He reads a lot and he 'd quite artistic..." Asha paused to think some more, "Oh, and he's a right show off with those football feet of his."

"Football?"

"Yeah, you play little skipper?"

"We play at school, but I'm not very good. What's a skipper?"

"Like a boat captain." Astrid gave her a confused look, "It's just a turn of phrase, never mind."

"You think Papa could teach me how to play football?"

"I don't know honey, he's-"

"Not well. Yeah, I know."

Asha reached out and pulled the solemn little girl into her lap, stroking her hair, "Hey, you wanna see something cool?" she asked.

Astrid pulled back slightly, "What?"

Asha placed her hand flat on the grass for a moment and slowly lifted it up, gradually revealing a fragile purple flower, growing upwards to chase the light seeping out from her palm.

"That's so awesome, can you teach me that?"

Harry and Ron grinned at each other. Asha tapped the little girl on the nose, "In a little while, the fairies over there are wondering where you went."

Astrid jumped up and ran back over to her previous spot, just as Asha's phone started to ring from its current home in her sock. She pulled it out and rolled her eyes at Harry and Ron, "It's Richard," she told them.

She answered it and frowned for a few moments, "What am I, a bloody carrier pigeon?"

...

"You know, it's funny how magic is acceptable when it suits your ends."

...

"Fine, fine, I'll tell him."

...

"Yes, now, goodbye."

"What was that all about?" Ron asked, bewildered.

"Richard wants you to meet him at the flat."

Ron looked at Harry and then back at Asha, "Did he say why?"

"No, but don't take any nonsense from him, okay?"

Ron nodded in a daze, stood, and apparated.

* * *

><p>Richard buzzed him in and met him at the door of the elevator. He beckoned him inside and downstairs without a word, to where Draco sat on the sofa, leaning forwards with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped together at his mouth.<p>

"I'll make myself scarce," Richard said and headed to his own room.

Ron wasn't sure what to do with himself; he stared at Draco as if he had fallen out of the sky.

"You can sit down you know, I don't bite. Well, that's a lie, but you're probably safe."

Ron sat himself on a threadbare footstool without taking his eyes off him, "How are you?"

Draco shrugged.

Ron wrung his fingers and fought to keep his leg from shaking, "I know you must hate me right now."

"Hate you? Why would I hate you? I mean, I'm not impressed you went snooping around my medical records, but-."

"I didn't snoop, I pulled one report-"

"Either way."

"But I did lie to you, and I _obliviated_ you."

"You're talking like you actually want me to thump you," Draco looked almost amused, "And here I thought I was the masochist."

"Well of course I don't but-"

"I told you I wasn't ready for this, and I was right, it nearly killed me, maybe it still will."

"Draco-"

"Thank you."

"What?" Ron spluttered.

"Thank you for respecting me enough to let me make my own decision, even if I didn't get to in the end. It means a lot."

Ron reached out but decided at the last minute it wouldn't be enough and stumbled over to the sofa. He crushed his arms around Draco and stayed there until he patted him lightly on the back.

"There there, can you let go now? I'm finding it hard to breathe here."

Ron shook his head but did loosen his grip.

"Now you're just embarrassing yourself."

At length Ron peeled himself back, Draco saw tear tracks streaked over his red cheeks and was tempted to wipe them away like he would have done for Asha. And Richard, if he ever cried. Which come to think of it he didn't. Ron was oblivious to these kind thoughts and he wiped his face with the cuff of his own jumper.

"So now you know. And you're up and you're talking and you're... you."

"I'm getting there."

"Harry, he-"

"Ron," Draco's voice rang louder than he'd meant it to, he closed his eyes and focused on the rise and fall of his own chest.

Ron was suddenly unsure of the situation, "So, what now?"

Draco rubbed his forehead, "I don't know. I need to talk to Cal for one thing."

"You _what_?" Ron's jaw fell slack.

"Don't give me that 'you have fucked-up priorities' look, you have no idea what I've put him through over the years. He deserves an explanation."

"And Harry doesn't?"

"No, the last I checked, he doesn't. He _left_ _me_ Ron."

"So what? You're punishing him? Don't you think losing you has caused him to suffer enough?"

"No, of course I'm not punishing him," Draco dismissed him quietly, chewing his thumbnail, "I'm angry, I can't help that, I'm not trying to hurt him. I'm so scared Ron," he whispered.

Ron gently pulled Draco's hand away from his mouth, "Why?"

"Because I want this too much, and I'll fuck it up, and I don't know what will happen to me when I lose him all over again."

"That won't happen. I promise you."

"Then I need to do this right. I can't be tied to someone else."

Ron sighed, "Yeah, I guess I can see where you're coming from. You're being far too methodical about all this though."

"I need to be," Draco said poignantly.

"I'll get going then. Let me know if you need anything, okay?"

"Sure," Draco smiled and watched him make for the entrance stairs, "Ron?"

Ron turned back to him, "Yeah?"

"Do you know?"

"Know what?"

Draco bit his lips together and studied his friend, "Nothing. You'd better go."

* * *

><p>Draco walked out toward the edge, the cries of the breaking waves beneath giving preview to a plummet that he couldn't yet see. The grass grew sparse, too battered by the wind here to have much chance at happiness, but it was beautiful, this place. The sky was cold and grey but somehow the sun broke through it here and there, casting down like white paper streamers, and he felt so small.<p>

His man was marked, he didn't belong. Red and orange and purple - he was a sun of his own making as he spread his limbs free and swept his eyes over the ocean.

"So, no more us? This is it?" Draco asked, coming up behind him.

Cal offered up a sad smile before turning back to the view, "It never would have worked anyway."

"You reckon?"

"I'm far prettier than you, and you never recycle."

Draco laughed and knelt down just slightly behind him, to the side, "I have better things to do with my time that figure out which bin to put my empty milk cartons in."

"Like pondering over how you're not as pretty as me?"

"Yeah, sure, why not," Draco humoured him with a smirk.

Cal closed out the world and took in the salt air.

"This guy he told me about when we met," he murmured, "This laid back, funny, relaxed guy that wore his heart on his sleeve and didn't care who saw. That was really you?"

Draco dug his fingers into the sandy earth, "Hard to imagine isn't it?"

"Not really. I knew he was in there somewhere, it's what kept me interested."

Draco thought about this for a moment, "You think he's still in here?"

"I do," Cal affirmed with a definite nod, "This husband of yours - he better damn well appreciate what he has."

"I think..." Draco creased his forehead, "I think he will."

"I think you're probably right," Cal agreed, but added with a mocking wag of his finger, "If he doesn't you'd better get him told."

"I will."

"Because-"

Draco reached out and touched the back of his neck, "I know what I'm worth," he whispered, "You gave me that."

"Don't forget."

Draco leaned forward and placed a chaste kiss on his temple, "I won't," and then he was gone.

* * *

><p>At the farthest edge of the proud Malfoy estate lay a patch of Devil's Snare so viciously consuming that no landscaping wizard had ever emerged from it alive.<p>

Like all of the accepted curiosities of the estate, the snare had a story, and as a small boy, bored for lack of companionship, Draco had explored all of these curiosities and the stories that accompanied them.

The snare had been cursed upon a once beautiful garden, one of gates and fountains and hidden places. In one such hidden place, a passage spiralled down into the ground, heading east towards the servants quarters beneath the castle. His great great great great... great aunt had played there with her mother as a little girl, it was their place away from the world. When the mother had died, and the little girl had grown, she still found comfort on its quiet benches. Indeed, comfort was something she had desperately little of in those times.

Her father was a stern figure, a leading politician of the era and cruel with his power, her brothers were little more than shadows of his will. He forbade his daughter from wasting her life away in the garden and sealed the gates with the darkest of magics. His ambitions actually struck far higher than the submission of his only daughter, he also sought to enslave the elf population. He believed that their magic should be harnessed to the benefit of all wizardom.

She secretly rebelled, because only in that way could she stomach the life he had imposed upon her. She used the servant's passages to visit her garden under cover of darkness, and over time organised a revolt of the many magical creatures of the time. Unfortunately, one of the servants – a dalliance of her eldest brother – gave her away. On the night of an important summit meeting, her father broke the dark seals on the gates and alerted the Ministry of Magic, who sent a battalion of Aurors into the garden. All were killed, and in his rage at his daughter's betrayal he ordered the Snare be planted as a stark reminder to his other children - and future generations - of the price of disobedience.

What he didn't know was that beneath the strangling vines, the garden thrived on, lit and breathing by its own source of ancient magic.

Draco stood at the long forgotten back gate. This edge of the grounds wasn't warded, no one in recent times had ever managed to make them stick, and frankly it was seen as a redundant exercise for an expanse that was deemed impassable. He creaked the gate open and felt warmth rush over him as he stepped inside. As a boy, he'd played in this garden hundreds of times, but as a man, he's crossed it only once. That was the day he'd left it all behind.

Through the garden, Draco crept, trying to remember the way. It almost seemed as though the flowers were directing him, urging him on. He found the passage without much trouble and settled in for a long trek. As he made his way, fires lit along the roughcast walls to guide him, he counted each of them to hold himself to something mundane and tangible. Some forty-five minutes later he came to a heavy door, thick with cobwebs.

"Ut esse liberum," he said softly to it and it gave a lurch. He needed to push it the rest of the way open with brute force.

Inside was a dusty, disused living space - it seemed that the house elves still avoided the old servant's quarters. On the wall hung an empty portrait frame and a map. The map depicted the whole estate, and much like the one Harry had once shown him of Hogwarts, it displayed the locations of the manor's occupants. He found Harry up on the fifth floor, and noted with a tingle of panic another dot in the room next-door labelled 'Astrid'. He swallowed heavily and took a deep breath.

He climbed the servant's narrow spiral staircase up five flights and wandered the claustrophobic passageways, passing several wooden panels set half a metre up off the ground, until at long last he came to one marked 'B-XLVII'. He pushed it open as softly as he could muster and peered inside, he couldn't see any movement, but a single lit candle by the bed assured him that the room was definitely occupied. He stepped up into opening, and stared at the large four-poster with its green velvet drapes.

He took himself forward, one foot in front of the other, and another, and another, just like everything else today. He veered for the side of the bed bathed in warm light. At some point his eyes had fallen shut, but now was the time to open them, and he could, he must.

Harry's dark hair swept across his pillow, his hand holding the blankets up to cover the bottom half of his face, he sniffled slightly, scratching his nose in his sleep with his index finger.

Draco didn't realise his knees had given way until they hit the carpet and tears were streaming through his fingers.

"Draco?"

But he was curled into himself, shaking with the reality of it. Two bare feet appeared in his window of vision, and two strong hands pulled him up to lean on Harry's chest. He felt himself become wrapped up in warm skin.

"I didn't know, I swear I didn't know."

"Shhhhh, it's okay, you're back now, I've got you."

"I thought..."

"Shhhh," Harry stroked his fingers through Draco's hair and settled his nose in beside his, opening his eyes so close to Draco's that their eyelashes brushed together, "Come back to bed, love."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**What say you? **

**Oh, the password on the door roughly translates to 'That they would/should be free'  
><strong>

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	16. State of Harmony

**A/N:**

**Sorry for the delay, hectic at work and I got officially engaged yesterday (!).**

*****The following is actually only the 2****nd**** half of the chapter, the full version is on Livejournal at "lucisaurora,livejournal,com" replace the commas with dots. **

**I've done this because the 1****st**** half is NC17 rated and therefore not suitable for this site. You don't need to read the full chapter to get the jist of what's going on, so don't feel that you have to.**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and lemon poppy seed muffins.**

* * *

><p>[Removed Scene, see note above]<p>

* * *

><p>Draco awoke enveloped by an uncomfortable heat but found that he couldn't quite move, not even to push away from the source of said heat. He took a deep breath through his nose just as a girlish wail sang it's way though the walls.<p>

"Dad-dy! Grand-pa! I can't find my school tie!"

Draco fingernails instinctively gripped into the chest in front of him but he didn't dare raise his gaze to find Harry's.

There was a firm knock at the door and Harry groaned, wrapping his arms around Draco's back beneath the covers, pulling him closer. The door opened what must have been just a crack, Draco was faced in the wrong direction to know for sure.

"Harry?" he heard his Father's voice ask.

"It's hanging over the back of her chair, probably under a pile of yesterdays clothes," Harry answered, voice still thick with sleep. Draco doubted he'd even bothered to open his eyes.

The door didn't close at what was obviously a dismissal, and Harry seemed to have realised this too because he shifted his position and propped himself up slightly. The way he softly stroked Draco's back with one of his thumbs suggested he was more aware of the current situation than he had been a few moments ago.

Lucius took in the sight of his son's bundled form in Harry's arms and found himself frozen in the doorway until Harry's eyes focused on his. Harry gave a small nod and a quiet smile, and Lucius stepped back out, pulling the door with him.

"I know you're awake," Harry whispered as he drew his hand between them to prise away Draco's nails.

"I don't know how to deal with him yet."

"He loves you," Harry soothed.

"I don't like being manipulated. I'm not his puppet."

"Are you here because of him?"

"No, I'm here because of you, and," Draco trailed off, looking up for the first time, "We really have a daughter?"

Harry smiled and brushed Draco's hair away from his face, "Yes, that would be her clattering around like a herd of hippogriffs."

Draco's breaths came quicker with the blood pounding in his ears. He scrunched his eyes shut and waited for it to pass but it didn't.

"You wanna get out of here?"

"What about-"

"Lucius takes her to school, every other week I'm at Hogwarts so she gets consistency that way."

Draco grappled with this but allowed himself to be led out of bed and into his clothes.

"Where do you want to go?" Harry asked. Draco took his hand and brought them to an open hillside dusted with heather and coarse grass. A few rabbits scattered at their arrival.

They wandered in silence for some time before either of them spoke.

"I've missed so much."

Harry swung their hands back and forth to bring Draco back from the brink of melancholy, "I can fill you in if you like? Where do you want me to start?"

Draco dropped Harry's hand and looked around his feet, "Does she think I abandoned her?"

Harry clasped onto his arm, "You think I'd ever let her think that?" Harry studied him closely before adding softly, "I told her you were ill, that you needed to go away to get better."

Draco pulled his arms around his waist and nodded.

"So, how does this work exactly?" At Harry's blank look Draco elaborated, "Us being married?"

"I dinno," Harry shrugged and put his hands in his pockets, "We've not really had much practice have we?"

Draco sensed something beneath that question, "Not unless you count being married to my job," he conceded.

Harry grinned, "Ah, a competitor! Tell me about it?"

It was Draco's turn to shrug, "Not really much to tell, keeps me busy I suppose."

Harry got the sense that Draco had other things he'd rather discuss and so he let the topic drop.

"Am I to move back to the Manor?"

"Would you want to?"

"I think I'd rather hack out my own eye," Draco grumbled. He glanced at Harry moments later and silently berated himself for the troubled frown he saw, "I didn't mean because of you or Astrid, or even Dad, I just can't stand that place, it makes me feel claustrophobic."

"Oh yes, it _is_ rather small," Harry returned with a wink.

"I mean because I've been trapped in it before, against my will," Draco corrected him, "More than once."

"Oh. Of course," Harry's face fell again.

"Does Astrid like it?"

"She loves it: she runs around the grounds with the fairies and has all the portraits wrapped around her little finger. I swear she knows more about that place than your father and I put together."

"She probably does," Draco said, musing to himself that she sounded much like him as a boy before scrunching up his nose, "How in the hell did you end up living there anyway? This bizarre state of harmony you seem to have going with my father is, well, bizarre."

"I'm not sure. We were at each other's throats all the time, and then Astrid was born and we just... weren't."

"Oh," Draco managed.

"I know you have every right to be angry with him, but for what it's worth, I think he regrets what he did."

"What part?"

"All of it."

Draco shook his head lightly and worked his mouth into a concentrated smile, "Did you mention something about Hogwarts?"

Harry nodded with a proud puff of his chest, "I'm a professor now, part time. I teach Defence."

"Obviously," Draco drawled at him, "What do you do when you're not teaching?"

"Look for you mostly. Not sure how I'll fill the time now."

Draco dropped down to sit and gestured for Harry to do the same, "I'm sure you'll think of something. Tell me more about our daughter."

They talked for hours, about birthday parties and comical mishaps and decisions that had been made in Draco's absence. Eventually the sun had risen so high it had started to sink back down again and Harry made the suggestion of home.

Draco rolled onto his stomach and picked at the plantlife, "We can't just..."

"You'll need to face him eventually."

Draco visibly deflated, "I have no desire to alleviate his conscience Harry. I thought I wanted him back in my life, and then he went and reminded me exactly why I cut him out of it in the first place," he flitted his eyes up and did a double take at Harry's pout, "Oh fine, but only because you look so bloody miserable."

Harry jumped up and offered a hand before Draco could change his mind.

"You're far too chipper about this."

Harry dialled down his enthusiasm and swapped it for something more poignant, "I just want my family back together."

Draco eyeballed him with a raised brow and accepted the hand to pull himself up, "I never thought I'd hear you refer to my father as your family."

"Does it really bother you that much?"

Draco sighed, "It's reassuring I guess – stranger than I'd ever dream up anyway. Come on then, let's get this over with."

They arrived in the drawing room with a deliberate 'crack' from Draco, who blinked innocently when Harry huffed at him for it. The faux innocence drifted beneath a cultured sneer as he looked around the all-too-familiar surroundings, and when he came to his father, standing up out of his reading chair, all the warmth and vibrancy of the morning had leeched away.

"Do sit down father, you look like you're expecting the pope."

"Draco," Harry coughed, "Play nice, huh? For me?"

Draco flinched and sat himself down on a champagne velvet couch, leaving space for Harry to join him.

"It's wonderful to have you home," Lucius said once they were all seated. Draco simply stared at him.

"You're looking well," Lucius tried again. Again, Draco didn't speak but he did relax his shoulders slightly when Harry squeezed his hand.

"What is it you want from me father?" Draco eventually asked.

"I don't _want_ anything, I just thought you had a right to know the truth."

Draco scoffed at that and examined his hands.

"What have you been doing with yourself all this time?"

"Nothing you'd be interested in I'm sure."

"Okay Draco, you've made your point, if you wanna leave, we'll leave," Harry said, "That is, if you even want me to come with you."

Draco shot him a sharp look.

Lucius leant forward to draw the conversation back to him, "Try me?"

Draco folded his arms, "I've been living in Edinburgh, in the loft of a disused warehouse."

"That sounds... intriguing."

Draco's heart gave a twist of cruel glee at his father's obvious discomfort.

"You must have the most amazing views over the city," Harry tried brightly.

"We do. Every New Year we sit up on the roof, and light a fire, and watch the fireworks over the castle. We sit up all night and talk and eat and listen to the city celebrate below. I missed it this year..."

"How have you been surviving? Are you working?" Lucius asked.

"A bit of this, a bit of that, whatever pays the bills really. Mostly I sell coffee."

"Coffee? So, you wait tables?"

"Would there be something wrong with that?" Draco challenged his father.

"No, he's not saying that at all," Harry intervened, "Are you?"

"Of course not," Lucius said in a thin voice.

"You are happy though, right?"

Draco nodded to Harry, "I have no complaints."

The trio sat in an awkward silence while the grandfather clock ticked away in the corner. Draco squeezed Harry hand and leaned in to his ear, "I have an appointment at 3 o'clock that I can't miss, I'd better get going."

"But it's only 2 now," Harry said as Lucius made no effort to hide his eavesdropping.

"I can't very well apparate directly into the middle of the hospital foyer now can I?"

"Why are you going to the hospital?"

Draco mentally kicked himself, "It's nothing, just a check up, but I can't reschedule. I'll come back, I promise."

"Astrid will want to meet you."

Draco reached out to curl his fingers behind Harry's neck and pulled him closer. He kissed him softly and rested their faces together before lifting away. He ignored his father's quirked eyebrow and said, "I'll be back, you have to trust me."

Harry took a deep breath and bolstered himself up, "I do."

"Well then," Draco stood to leave, "Just give me a few hours," he said as he disapparated.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Hope you enjoyed, review review! Remember the first half of that chapter is to be found on LJ (See top note)  
><strong>

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	17. A Very Bad Influence

**A/N:**

**Wella! Chapter 17 is all yours :) I'm off to paint my living room.  
><strong>

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and decorating help.  
><strong>

* * *

><p>Draco reappeared in the entrance foyer of the manor quite on purpose, knowing it was unlikely he'd drop in on anyone unexpectedly that way. The portrait of the young maiden who oversaw the hall gave a loud gasp, "Master Draco, it <em>is<em> thee!"

"Gwinnie! You missed me?"

"What a ridiculous question," she admonished him.

Draco smiled and blew her a kiss as he made for the doorway; she caught it with one painted hand and blushed.

Draco fought to keep a leisurely pace as he headed towards the drawing room, but it was hard to fight the separate urges to both run as far as possible in the opposite direction, and to dance the excitement around in his bones.

"Draco?" Harry's head said as it popped out into the corridor, "You set off the entrance chime," he explained.

"I assumed as much," Draco returned with a smile.

Harry stepped out completely, "How'd things go?"

"At the hospital? Brilliantly. I told you it was nothing."

Harry sorely wanted to question the mystery further but the bright smile Draco was sending his way put a stop to that. He held out his hands for Draco to take instead. Draco used the connection to pull Harry to him and placed a soft kiss at the corner of his eye. Harry's lashes fluttered at this and a warm outpour of relief settled over his shoulders.

"Hey - you were worried," Draco accused lightly, trailing the backs of his fingers down the side of Harry's face.

Harry's gaze flickered down and in a snap he led Draco back the way he'd came, casting a glace or two over his shoulder on route. For a brief moment Draco thought he was being shown out, until Harry side-stepped into a quaint little room with two ornately carved chairs, fresh flowers on a tables between them, and a plush window seat behind. Harry opted for the window seat and gestured for Draco to join him.

"The abundance of pointless rooms in this house never ceases to amaze me," Draco half laughed, chewing his lip.

"Are you really okay with all this?" Harry asked.

"You think I'm not?" Draco deflected back at him.

Harry frowned slightly, "I know you weren't when you found out."

"I needed some time."

"I don't want to push you into something you're not ready for-"

"And send me over the edge?"

Harry looked up from his hands for the first time since sitting down, "Yeah," he admitted.

"Trust me to know me Harry. If I didn't want this, I wouldn't be here."

Harry's heart gave a euphoric little skip at that but he was determined to stay focused, "I'm not saying you don't want it, I'm saying it's okay to be afraid."

"Afraid? Harry I'm fucking terrified!"

Harry swallowed this down, "So we'll take things slower."

"I don't want to, I want to meet my daughter. That's what we're really discussing here isn't it? You're thinking I'll see her and have some sort of episode."

"I've just had too much time to worry this afternoon I guess."

"Don't shrug it off like that Harry, it's a valid concern," Harry blanched, he wanted to be reassured, not validated. Draco continued, "But I wouldn't be telling you I was ready for this if I weren't. There are a lot of things I can't give you right now, moving back here for example, but I won't screw this up, and I won't run away."

Harry's lips quirked upwards and he thumbed the bones of Draco's wrist, "Okay, let's go up, she's in her room."

They walked hand in hand up to the fifth floor and stopped outside a door with an extraordinarily pink sign that read 'Astrid' in glittery letters.

"Yeah?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Draco insisted, tugging down on Harry's hand with impatience.

Harry knocked and gently pressed the door open, "Astrid honey?"

"Daddy look!" She pointed at the parchment in front of her where she'd drawn a purple spotted frog that now leapt about in its colourfully pencilled little world.

"That's lovely sweetheart. I have someone here I think you'd like to meet though."

Draco took his cue to step forward into the room, hands shaking slightly at his sides, unsure what to do with themselves.

"Sweetheart, this is your Papa."

Draco was stunned by her: her white blond hair, her bright green eyes, and the graceful way she came toward him, mouth open slightly and eyes wide. He knelt down to meet her at her own level, and her eyes flicked back to Harry. He motioned her onwards so she forewent her last few steps in favour of leaping directly into Draco's arms. He held her there, amazed that she could exist at all, but thankful that she did.

"I'm sorry I've been away for so long little one," he whispered to her.

"Are you better Papa?"

"All the more so for meeting you, my beautiful Princess," Draco vowed, gesturing Harry over into the embrace. The three of them huddled on the floor together for so long that Draco's knees started to ache but he found he didn't care. Harry was sniffling and soon they all were.

Draco pulled back a bit to kiss each of them in turn on the forehead, "I'm starving, what about you two?"

Harry laughed and struggled to his feet, pulling his family up with him, "Let's go get dinner then shall we?"

* * *

><p>"Spag Bol?" Draco asked of his father, "Really? You're letting them eat Spag Bol, here, at this table, off the good china? No foie gras? No caviar? No veal marinated for three months in fourteen different spices by partially sighted Haitian nuns?"<p>

"You're mocking me," Lucius noted.

Draco cast him something of an appraising glance as he struggled with the notion of such an ordinary plate of food in such an ornate setting.

"He turned the menu options over to me after about a month of pregnancy hormones and the cravings that went with," Harry laughed, helping himself to more cheese.

Draco shook his head and gave his husband a wry look, twisting some of the pasta onto his fork, "Ohmygob thab's gorgeous!" he declared when it was half inside his mouth.

Astrid giggled, "Daddy says you shouldn't eat with your mouth full."

Draco wiped his mouth with a crisp linen napkin, "Sage advice," he nodded solemnly.

Lucius was staying fairly quiet, unsure which eggshells it was safe to walk on when it came to his son. "Can you pass the salad?" he eventually asked, testing the water.

Draco, enthralled in conversation with his daughter about one of the statues on the second floor, simply waved his hand and the bowl reappeared at Lucius' right hand.

"You're foregoing wand magic altogether these days I see," Lucius commented.

Draco turned and raised an eyebrow at him, he studied him in this way for a few moments, Harry was looking between them like a tennis umpire.

"I forego magic in general these days, doesn't mean I'm not capable of it."

Harry was itching to ask about Cal's involvement in that, but didn't feel this was the time or place. Draco brushed his thigh against Harry's under the table and Harry wondered at his perceptiveness.

"It's not perceptive, I can hear what you're thinking," Draco said to him out of the corner of his mouth.

Harry jumped, "We need to work on that," he said quietly to his fork.

Lucius squinted at them, "Something wrong father?" Draco asked him.

"Perhaps," he said, but left it at that. Draco rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to Astrid who was mashing her food together into a strange terracotta-coloured paste.

* * *

><p>Many hours later, the sun had fallen out of sight. Astrid had adamantly refused her bed until Draco offered to read her to sleep. She picked out her favourite story book and settled in to listen to her Papa's voice as she drifted off. Harry watched from the doorway, warmed by the scene.<p>

"Your father wants to talk to you," he whispered when at length Draco closed the book and set it on Astrid's bedside table.

"Oh joy," Draco drawled, but it didn't carry much venom so Harry decided it was safe to lead him back to the drawing room.

Upon arrival, Lucius offered them both a glass of firewhiskey, which Harry accepted and Draco waved off.

"I wanted to give you something," Lucius began, and held out an ancient little key to his son. The key had the number 298 worked into the flourishes of its staff.

"This looks suspiciously like a Gringotts vault key father," Draco said as he scrutinised it further.

"It is that," Lucius admitted.

"Then why are you giving it to me?"

"It's yours, your mother and I set it up for you when you were born, we'd planned to give it to you when you came of age."

"What makes you think I need your money father?"

Lucius set his glass down, "I don't presume anything of the sort, you've stated that you're happy with your lot in life and I'm not questioning that by any means, but this money is yours and you should therefore take it."

"I don't have any use for it."

"You don't need to have a use for it, in fact, it's better that you don't. This is _financial security _Draco."

"I already have that," Draco's tone was bordering on irritated and Harry started to fidget, anticipating a row.

"Waiting tables?" Lucius retorted. Harry's head fell into his hands.

"You don't know the first thing about it father."

"I know you're better than _that._"

"There's nothing wrong with _that,_" Draco spat back, "What happened to you not questioning my lifestyle, huh? Father there are people in the world who kill themselves working around the clock in horrific conditions for what equates to pennies. Those people would think themselves lucky to wait tables. "

"You are _not_ those people though are you? You were raised to live a life of privilege!"

"It didn't feel very privileged when you-"

"Please stop!" Harry interrupted before the voices were too aggressive to knock down.

"Sorry Harry," Draco said and reached over to rub his knee, not managing to resist sending one last glare in his father's direction.

"Please just take it," Lucius sighed, massaging his temples.

Draco's upper lip twisted in disgust as he pocketed the key, "Harry?"

"Yeah?"

"Bed?"

Harry swept Lucius with a wave of disappointed pity as they departed and left him behind.

* * *

><p>"You really need to go to work?" Harry groaned, tugging Draco back down to the bed, "Can't you just call in sick?"<p>

"'Fraid not," Draco sighed, twisting around to place an open-mouthed kiss in the hollow of Harry's collarbone. The movement caused several of his aches to resurface and Draco blushed at the memory of the night before.

"We probably have time for a few more," Harry said indicating the deep red marks that peppered Draco's torso.

Draco swatted him away, "You," he pointed, "Are a very bad influence. Here I am trying to be an upstanding, tax-paying, socially conscious citizen..."

Harry laughed and cut him off with a pillow to the head.

Draco stood, somehow managing to hold an air of dignity while still wearing nought but his boxers.

"You're going in like that?"

"No you dolt, I'll get dressed at mine."

"Is that so?" Harry crawled toward him with jaguar poise.

"Well there's no sense putting on yesterday's dirty clothes only to-"

Harry balanced up onto his knees and reached his arms around Draco's neck, planting a kiss on his jaw line.

"Oh screw it," Draco gave in, pushing them both back onto the bed.

Harry laughed again, "You're too easy!"

"Mmmhmm," Draco agreed, nuzzling into Harry's neck.

"Um, Draco, as fun as it would be to take advantage of your sudden lack of willpower, I have this feeling you'll come to your senses sooner or later and curse me into next Sunday..."

"Hmmmmphh," Draco straightened out his arms and hovered himself over Harry, "Probably."

"Think you can survive the day without me?"

"No," Draco huffed.

Harry shooed him off the bed and handed him his wallet, "When will you be done for the day?"

"Not sure, I'll call though."

Harry nodded and blew Draco a kiss as he apparated away.

Lucius quirked a brow at him when he arrived for breakfast alone.

Astrid looked up from her bowl of cereal, "Papa's gone?"

"He had to get to work honey, but we'll spend the whole weekend with him, okay?"

"Oh," she slouched, "I wanted to ask him something about school."

"Well what is it sweetheart? Maybe I can help?"

"No, it's okay. The whole weekend though, right?" she brightened.

Harry nodded, hoping that wasn't going to turn out to be a lie.

"Eat up your breakfast and we'll get going, you don't want to be late now do you?" Lucius said to distract her.

* * *

><p>Draco lasted until lunchtime, by which point he was in such a flap that he gave in and dialled Harry's number, "You've turned me into mush, you know that?" he lectured Harry as soon as he picked up.<p>

Harry set down the papers he'd been grading, "It's nice to talk to you too darling."

"Can I be done yet? Can I just come back over there and have my wicked way with you, work be damned?"

Harry sat back in his swively leather office chair and curled his feet up under him, biting his thumbnail, "I don't know, can you?"

Draco blew out a deep breath, which Harry took to mean that he couldn't.

"What are you up to anyways?" he asked, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder while he signed for a shipment of kitchen utensils and waved the delivery men off.

"Dashing the hopes of incompetent students," Harry answered, "Um, I think we goofed up this morning by the way."

"Yeah?" Draco said, waving to the gaggle of smartly dressed twenty-somethings being led around by the new pub's recently appointed bar manager.

"With Astrid - she didn't get to see you off."

"Shit Harry," Draco smacked his palm to his forehead, "I wasn't even thinking."

"It's okay, I didn't think about it either, and I'm supposed to have more practice at this."

"Yeah..."

"I didn't mean it like that."

"I know, I just- Ron!"

"What?"

"No, Ron's here," Draco clarified.

"He is?"

"Well, not here with you here, here with me here. Say hi Ron."

Harry heard his friend's awkward greeting in the background and felt a jealous curl in his stomach.

"Hey, you should come for dinner at my place tonight."

"Are you talking to me or Ron?" Harry asked.

"You of course, Ron's gone again, somewhere," Draco craned his head around the pub with mild interest, half wondering at the disappearance, "You and Astrid. I'll cook. You can both stay the weekend, I'll take you 'round the city – hey, we can go to the zoo! The penguins do this really cute thing where they march."

Harry's jealously flitted away as quickly as it had come, as did his worry over breaking the promise he'd made to his daughter, "I don't know where you live though."

"Oh that's easily fixed, hang on," Harry heard the phone rustle as though partially covered, "Ron!?" Draco shouted over the din, "Where are you?"

"Here, what's up?"

"You can bring Harry and Astrid over for dinner right?"

Ron gave an enthusiastic nod and signalled 'okay' from across the main bar area, Draco raised the phone back to his ear, "See, sorted."

"Great," Harry said, feeling a bubble or two of envy return.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. Why's Ron there anyway?"

"I dinno, he's wandered off again. I'm thinking he wants fed, he always wants fed – have you noticed?"

"Yeah."

"So... six o'clock?"

"Sure, see you then. Love you."

Draco melted into the wall.

"Hello?"

"I'm still here," Draco said softly, "I miss you."

"I miss you too, I'll let you go though."

"Yeah, gotta get gone, bye Harry."

Draco slipped his mobile back into his pocket.

"So... you seem happy?" Ron said, coming up behind him.

Draco nodded where he stood, still slumped against the wall, "He's turning me into a ruddy great pile of fluff."

"Oh the horror," Ron mocked.

"Oh, hey, I was hoping you'd stop by actually," Draco turned, "Asha wants to redecorate the flat, she says it's too bland without all the glass now. I told her she could raid the warehouse but only if you went with her. I'm snowed under and I have visions of her pulling one of those heavy boxes down on top of her and us finding her in a pool of b-"

"Stop! Sure thing, I'll go find her now. Hey you don't have any food here yet do you?"

Draco rolled his eyes and pointed him in the direction of the staff room where he was sure the workmen had left some baked bean pies.

* * *

><p>"You ready?" Ron asked, looking from Harry to Astrid, the three of them standing in the rooftop garden of Draco's building. Both nodded, shivering slightly from the cold.<p>

Ron didn't bother to knock, opting instead to just open the front door and usher them inside, "Who's home?" he called.

"Nobody here but us chickens," Asha's voice drifted up to them.

"She's so weird but I love her," Ron chuckled to himself as he took their coats and hung them on the hooks behind the door.

Footsteps sounded up the staircase toward them and Harry turned to see Draco lounging against the banister, trying for casual and failing completely.

"Papa!"

"Hey you," Draco caught her as she came toward him and lifted her up, reaching his other arm out to Harry, "Missed you."

Harry blushed and ducked his head.

"Cheers Ron," Draco added.

"I am but a humble taxi," he said with a sweeping bow.

Draco shook his head and herded them all back down the stairs, "You're spending too much time around Asha you know."

Asha stood waiting, hands on her hips and a dishtowel over her arm, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing dear," Draco said sweetly.

"Wow," Astrid breathed, head turning at the glass spirals hanging from the high ceiling.

"Wow indeed," Harry agreed, "Draco, this place is... _not_ what I imagined."

"I'm assuming that's a compliment?"

"Its huge, it's... so eclectic..." he said, taking in the large open space.

"What does eclectic mean Daddy?" Astrid queried.

"It means none of the furniture matches," Asha supplied.

"Well, yeah, but in an _awesome_ way, look at all these colours, Merlin look at that glasswork! And the windows, and the paintings, and is that a _traffic cone_?"

"It was our first Christmas tree, don't ask," Draco said as he handed Astrid a lollypop from the bowl on the coffee table, "You want the full tour?"

"Hey, I've never had the tour!" Ron pouted.

Draco stuck his tongue out at him, "In that case feel free to tag along,"

"I'll put the kettle on," Asha said and headed off to the kitchen.

"So," Draco began, "This meeting of armchairs and sofas anonymous," he gestured to the area around them, "Is the living room. And this," he picked his way over to the mantelpiece, "Is apparently art-"

"Oi!" hollered Asha.

"-Painted by our own very own Asha, everyone please give her a clap," he patted his hands together politely and turned briefly in her direction. The others, though somewhat bemused, followed suit.

"That one's called 'Draco likes the sound of his own voice'."

Draco ignored her, "Below the art is what we call a fireplace, it is not connected to the floo network, please do not attempt to step into it, you _will_ get burned," he peered at Astrid as he said this.

"Got it," she nodded. Harry and Ron shared a grin.

"Good good," he shifted the weight of her to his other arm and headed toward the kitchen area, which sat to one side of the entrance stairwell, "This is where we keep the food, cook the food, and in Ron's case, _steal_ the food."

"Hey! I earn my keep though manual labour and the occasional heroic deed."

"Sure you do," Draco humoured him, though he knew it was true, "That heavenly scent coming from the oven is dinner by the way. Sorry, where were we? Ah! This," Draco gestured to the enlarged kitchen table, "Is where we eat the food, it's all very exciting. Over here," Draco moved away, along the outer edge of the living space, "We have a rather large anvil. I'm not really sure why it's here or what it's all about, but there you go. Hey, do you mind if I put you down kiddo?"

"Sure Papa," she smiled.

"This is the intercom, people buzz from out there on the street and we decide if we want to let them in. Sometimes we just press the button and make random wailing noises to scare passersby..."

"You don't really!" Harry admonished him.

"They do, I've seen them at it," Ron confirmed. Astrid giggled and Draco waggled his eyebrows at her.

"This is the bathroom," Draco swung open a door and closed it just as quickly, "It's not very riveting, if you've seen one you've seen them all." Draco walked on and indicated another door, "That's your Auntie Asha's room, don't let her catch you in there." He crossed back over the living space again, and opened up another door, "Um, this is mine, Harry you can set your stuff down," Ron noticed Draco chewing his lip as if anxious about this, he couldn't understand for the life of him why he would be though.

Harry smiled, taking in the room at leisure, dusting down the bedspread and peering at the books on the bedside table.

"It's just a room Harry."

Harry took the hint and dumped his bag at the foot of the bed, following the others out.

Draco let out a forgotten breath as he clicked the door shut behind them, "So moving on, that's your Uncle Richard's room, and-"

"Who's Uncle Richard?"

"Ah," Draco swung his daughters hand, "A very good friend of mine. Actually, we first met when we were tiny little babies, but we don't really remember that so we count it from the second time we met, which was probably right around the time you were born."

Harry and Ron looked at each other in confusion just as Asha called, "Tea!" from the other side of the flat.

"Just a minute," Draco called, "And last but definitely not least, this can be your room, it's a bit plain, I know, but the bed's like a giant marshmallow. No in the edible kind of way, you understand. In the super-soft-and-squishy kind of a way. "

Harry set her overnight bag on the floor just inside the door and gave a quick nod of approval to Draco who looked like he needed it, "What do you think sweetheart?"

Astrid eyed the bed and something like mischief played on her features.

"Yes, you can jump on it," Draco said, "How else are you going to test its marshmallow-like qualities?"

"Please don't encourage her," Harry grimaced until Draco placed a kiss on his temple.

"It's getting cold!" Asha called through again.

"Alright alright, we're coming woman!"

* * *

><p>Richard came home just as dinner was plated up, "You must be Harry," he said, extending his hand.<p>

Harry shook the offered hand with a firm grip, "And you would be Richard, right?"

"Right, I've heard good things about you Harry, are they all true?"

"Uh..."

"Yes," Draco shouted over, "I'm slaving over a hot stove here like some fifties housewife here, if you don't all sit down I'm going to eat this entire tray of lasagne myself."

Richard leaned in closer, "That's his way of saying I'm not allowed to interrogate you."

"Oh," Harry couldn't decide if he was joking.

"Come sit up top with me honey," Asha said to Astrid, patting the chair next to her.

Dinner passed quickly and Harry actually enjoyed the relaxed banter, in spite of Richard's not-so-covert glances at him. Astrid was completely doted on by everyone in equal measure, and Harry got the feeling that if she asked for the moon Draco might just lasso it down for her.

When they finished up, Draco gathered up their plates and set them on the counter, "Hey, Ash, it occurs to me that the spare room could use some sprucing up if Astrid's to be staying in there. Do you wanna take her and get it the way she wants it?"

"Sure," Asha stood, "Come on princess."

Draco watched them until they were safely inside the room and then turned on his heal, "How'd it go?" he whispered Richard.

"Excellent. You?"

"I'm gonna wipe the floor with you de Rochechouart."

"What are you two on about?" Ron asked.

"Shhhh, we don't have much time, Asha hates this. Hand it over," he motioned to Richard who had removed a slightly crumpled letter from his back pocket. Draco exchanged it for one of his own and they both scanned the contents for a few moments.

"Ha!" Draco exclaimed, brandishing the paper in his hand, "Two points! In – your - face!"

"Damn! I was so sure."

"Cough up."

"What's going on out there," Asha started back toward them.

"Nothing!" Richard and Draco said together, suddenly standing very straight, holding the evidence behind their backs.

"Well that's alright then," she disappeared again.

"You're a hard man Draco Malfoy," Richard palmed something to him and scoffed.

"Are you two going to explain?" Harry tried.

"It's not that interesting," Draco said, wrapping his arms around Harry's chest from behind, "Wanna come pick out a couch? I thought we could watch a film."

Harry struggled with himself, Draco was kissing his neck now and it made it hard to concentrate. He did catch the phrase 'Royal Infirmary' from the paper still clutched in Draco's fist before it moved back out of his view.

"Sure," he said, attempting a smile as he was hustled from his seat.

* * *

><p>AN:

Did you like?

Yes, the moon thing was a reference to 'It's a Wonderful Life'.

x X x

'Rora


	18. Brass

**A/N:**

**Chapter 18! Woop woop!**

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and white spirit.**

* * *

><p>"Morning," Draco yawned to the sprawl of Harry that had taken over most of his bed; a garble of contented noise was what passed for a response. Draco rolled toward the warm body and held it fast, determined to stave off his instincts regarding personal space.<p>

He lay there with his thoughts, listening for sounds in the rest of the flat until winter sunlight began to douse the bed and Harry began to squirm himself free of thier tangle of limbs and sheets.

"Going somewhere?"

"Loo," Harry managed to grunt, pausing to kiss Draco's temple before stumbling out of bed. Draco watched him stand stark naked in the middle of the room scratching his head, coming to terms with the upright world. He pointed out the dressing gown hanging from the back of the door before Harry could formulate the words to ask.

Draco watched him depart with a contented buzz in his chest; He stretched and sighed and then started when he realised there was a more productive use for Harry's absence. From his wallet he retrieved three half-used blister strips of pills and threw back first the pink and white, then the brown, then the big yellow monstrosity. Swallowing each down individually and grimacing when the latter got stuck mid-way down his throat.

"What was that?" Harry said from the doorway.

Draco tucked the strips back out of sight, "Headache," he lied easily.

Harry closed the door behind him with care, "Looked like more than that."

"Has Ash started on breakfast yet?" Draco asked, stepping toward his dresser for fresh clothes.

"Are you sick or something?"

Draco laughed it off, "No, of course I'm not," but realised when he looked that Harry wasn't convinced. He stepped toward him and put a hand on each arm, looking directly into his eyes, "No, I'm not sick. I'd tell you if I was."

"Then-"

"It's personal, and not your concern."

"But I'm your husband," Harry pushed with a steady, hard, edge to his voice.

Draco pulled on a pair of jeans and fiddled with the buttons, "I can't just flick a switch somewhere and be... whatever that means I'm supposed to be."

"Would you want to?"

"No."

"Right then," Harry sat on the edge of the bed and let his hair fall into his face.

Draco huffed and slammed the drawer of his dresser, "I didn't mean that the way it sounded."

"You sounded pretty certain."

To Draco's sharp ear, Harry sounded awfully like a petulant child. He had to fight the urge to treat him like one in return.

"I want the journey Harry. I want to grow with you, we should have had that."

Harry thought this over with a frown, "That's kind of sweet."

"I'm trying. Really fucking hard."

"Thank you."

Draco nudged him with a freshly socked foot and pouted, "I'm also starving though, so get bloody dressed already."

* * *

><p>Draco peered into a large, seemingly empty enclosure, "Lies I tell you, there are blatantly no- Oh look! There's one! Looks a bit scrawny though..."<p>

Harry rolled his eyes and laughed at Astrid who now jumped up and down to get the Lion's attention. He nudged Draco with his shoulder, "I've had a really great time you know, we both have."

Draco took his hand, wandering further along the path while still keeping an eye on Astrid, "I like having you here, in the real world."

"The manor isn't in the real world?"

Draco flashed him a smile and turned to read one of the zoo's educational placards.

"So, how long are you going to freeze your father out?"

"Oh not too long. A year, maybe two..."

"Draco," Harry chastised him.

"I'm not freezing him out, I'm just not putting up with his conniving bullshit - there's a difference."

"But you're still mad at him."

Draco nodded, "It'll pass," he said mildly.

"You reckon?" he asked, but Draco had started making faces at Astrid and didn't register the question.

They stopped and waited for her to catch up with them in front of an enclosure that apparently held a Giant Anteater, which led Draco to muse over the prospect of Giant Ants, which in turn reminded him of a B-movie he'd seen while still at University where Giant Ants took over world. He suppressed a shudder, which Harry mistook for a shiver, and smiled when his jacket was drawn shut and fastened at the neck.

Astrid reached them and tugged Draco's sleeve to pull him down, "Papa?"

"Yes beautiful?"

"Um, so I have to do this school project... And I wondered if you'd help me with it?"

Draco glanced at Harry as a hot balloon of something expanded in his chest, "Of course I will honey. What's it about?"

"Well, see, the thing is, Miss Fletcher says we have to research someone in our family and make a poster about them, and I wondered if maybe I could research you..."

Draco's mouth was suddenly dry, while his eyes felt watery, "Anything you want sweetheart."

"Really?" she jumped into his arms, "Thank you Papa!"

Draco spent the rest of their day at the Zoo dumbstruck. The part of him that felt immensely privileged to be the topic of his daughter's school project warred with the part of him that felt ashamed that his own daughter would need to research him in order to know him. He tried to hide the war under a smile and a layer of his patented charm but he could feel Harry's concern leeching through at him.

When the time came to leave, he excused himself in order to run some errands, which only caused Harry to worry more.

* * *

><p>"Hey, you're home!" Harry stood to greet him when he returned to the manor several hours later. "Have you eaten?"<p>

"I grabbed something at mine when I dropped in to pick up these," Draco said, holding up three heavy photo albums, "I thought you could help me pick out a couple for Astrid's project."

Harry looked from Draco to the albums in his arms, "I'd love that," he said with feeling, "Astrid's just getting ready for bed if you want to tuck her in? I'll have the house elf bring through a pot of tea for us for when you're done."

Draco's eyes flickered around the drawing room, settling for a second on his father before finding their way back to Harry. He nodded and set the albums down on the coffee table, kissing Harry briefly before he headed upstairs.

"It seems your concern was misplaced," Lucius said once he and Harry were alone again.

"He's trying," Harry echoed Draco's sentiment from that morning.

"He's stronger than most are ever willing to believe."

Harry laughed, "I think he'd place _you_ in that category."

"I don't doubt his strength, I doubt his willingness to seize it. He only ever seems to when he's backed into a corner. He could be anything; he could be Minister for Magic even, if he ever put his skills to good use."

Harry stared at him in disbelief, "You're ridiculous, you know that?"

Lucius simply shrugged and Harry turned away to order the tea. Draco returned shortly after it appeared and poured himself a cup.

"Are you joining us Father?" he addressed Lucius at last.

"If I'm welcome."

Draco didn't commit to an answer either way, which caused Lucius to doubt himself, but regardless the three of them were soon settled in to pour over the albums together.

"Where was this taken?" Harry pointed to one of the first photos which showed Draco, Asha, and Richard huddled together under a brown patterned duvet. Part of an outstretched arm obscured the side of the frame, giving the impression that Richard had taken the shot himself.

"That was my first flat. It was a complete dive, but we made it home. This was taken at our first Christmas; Asha'd been turfed out of her own flat a week beforehand, and the pipes at Richard's place had frozen and burst, so we were all crammed into this shoebox. We didn't have any money so we could barely afford to keep the heat on, but we managed somehow."

Lucius frowned at his son's grey pallor and sunken eyes in the picture, "You look like death."

"I'd been better."

Harry and Lucius shared a grimace. "Don't do that," Draco said.

"Sorry, we didn't mean to-" Harry started, "Well who's this?"

"That's Mr Henderson. Richard and I used to work for him. In a way I still do, at least, it feels that way sometimes. He's technically retired, but..." Draco drifted off deliberately rather than try to explain - in front of his actual father – his lingering desire for the man's approval.

"He looks like the friendly sort. Was he a good boss?"

Draco tapped the picture and hummed a disagreement, "Don't let appearances fool you, he can be bloody terrifying, and he's had me on the ropes more than once. But, yeah, he was a good boss. He taught me a lot; I respect him."

Lucius fought to ignore the twinge of jealousy that stabbed through him, "What about this one? You're wearing robes."

"Graduation. Robes are traditional for that, even in the muggle world."

"You went back to school?" Harry asked.

"Uni. Not a big deal, I just felt the need to exercise my brain after all those months of drooling into my pillow. Ha!" he exclaimed, pointing to a picture full of people dressed in black and white stripes, mostly to drag the conversation away from that dangerous well of melancholy – something he could skirt around with ease, but almost everyone else seemed to get distracted by, much too easily in his opinion. "This was the Beetlejuice march," he explained.

Harry swallowed hard, "The what now?"

Draco peered at him, wondering if he could really be so bereft of pop-culture before realising that this was _muggle_ pop-culture, and Harry's muggle relatives hadn't really possessed _any_ kind of culture, nor would they have passed it on if they did. "Never mind, it was this fundraising thing Asha and I put together."

"No Richard?"

"It's not really his thing. He doesn't much see the point in making money that he can't keep."

"I could follow that logic," Lucius said carefully.

"Well of course _you_ would," Draco stuck his tongue out at him and Lucius wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

* * *

><p>Draco handed over a few safe photographs to Astrid the next morning at the breakfast table - the kind that wouldn't raise too many hard questions. He explained them to her while buttering his toast and then turned to Lucius, "What's going on in the world today father?"<p>

Lucius' nose stayed buried in a copy of the Daily Prophet, "It seems St Hellifold's Orphanage are building a new wing."

Draco made a face of muted approval and nodded along with it, "Oh good, they're making good use of the money then."

Lucius brought the paper down and leaned in to study Draco's movements, "What did you do!?"

Draco shrugged, not meeting his gaze, "I told you I didn't need or want your money, you wouldn't listen. You never listen. That's your prerogative I suppose, but don't expect me to fold into your little mechanicions just because you've decided I should."

Draco was smiling sweetly but Harry sensed trouble ahead in spite of this, "Astrid honey you should go get your school uniform on, huh?"

She jumped down from her chair, "Okay Daddy."

"Give me goodbye hug sweetie, I need to leave soon," Draco reached out for her, "So pretty," he added, flicking her nose.

Lucius waited until she'd left before hissing, "I won't have a son of mine living like a pauper!"

"Oh please father, who uses the word pauper anymore? Besides, I've told you, I have more than enough money to get by."

"Oh yes, your prestigious career in 'coffee selling', how could I forget."

"And tea, don't forget the tea - a good brew of earl grey is frightfully easy to offend you know," Draco said, biting down on his toast and refusing to match his father's seething tone.

"I honestly don't know how you can stand the variety."

"Come now, it's not all coffee pots and kettles. Why since just before Christmas I've been undertaking in a fair bit of manual labour."

"Dear Merlin..."

"Hammering, sawing, plastering, tiling, that kind of thing. And - _and_ - I unclogged a pub toilet that looked like it hadn't seen a bottle of bleach in at least ten years."

Lucius raised a hand to his eyes as if to somehow shield himself, "Please stop!"

"I'm sorry," Draco blinked, "Am I disturbing you?"

"You know perfectly well you are."

"Draco, don't wind him up," Harry pleaded.

"When will you get it through your thick skull that I can take care of myself? I've managed so far haven't I?"

"Merlin knows how..."

"Lucius!" Harry shot daggers his way but they went unnoticed.

Draco stood and threw his napkin on his plate, "I'm going to work."

"Wait," Harry stopped him, "Will we see you tonight?"

"I told you Harry, I have to be at work tonight."

"Then after work."

"I doubt I'll get out of there by 1am."

"But you're leaving now, that's like... a 16 hour shift."

"I've done worse."

"Please don't be like that. Surely you have time for dinner?"

Draco folded his arms and looked between Harry and his father, "Why don't I take you all out for dinner? Of course, I apparently can't afford such hospitality, so we'll probably all end up washing dishes to settle the bill, but what the hell," he threw his arms up.

Harry decided the best course of action was to take the words at face value, "That sounds good," he said, his voice taking on a desperate quality, "Doesn't it Lucius?"

Draco's conscience started to crowd out his rib cage and he relented, "Good, I'll pick you up from the Wizarding Exchange at 5. And don't be late, I don't have time to wait around on anyone today."

"We'll be there," Harry called just as Draco disapparated.

* * *

><p>Lucius approved of his son's choice for dinner - a muggle place aptly named 'The Briar'. Apt because of the thorny wrought-iron vines and red glass roses that tangled around the place with subtle elegance. It was more of a pub really, but the atmosphere was calm and the menu was adequate, especially after many years of Harry wearing down his culinary standards. Dozens of candles and a roaring fire in the hearth warmed them after a short, but rain-soaked walk from the Exchange.<p>

"This is a nice place, the staff are very attentive," he said, thinking that despite what Draco had said, he really ought to settle the bill himself when it came. Harry was nodding, fingering the stem of the single glass rose in the vase on their table.

"Yeah, they get a bit twitchy when the boss is in," Draco shrugged without looking up, pushing some salmon onto his fork.

"One has to wonder why it's so empty."

"Ah," Draco took a sip of ice water, "Well, the place has been closed for renovation. Technically it doesn't reopen its doors to the public for another... ninety-six minutes."

Harry tilted his head, fork midway to his mouth, "How'd you pull that off?"

Astrid tugged his sleeve and was pointing up at the ceiling, where light from the candles was dancing through the various pieces of ornamental glass. Draco pointed at the far wall where the effect was elongated and her eyes glittered. "I own it," he said, still distracted by his daughter.

"Excuse me?"

"It belongs to me," Draco clarified to his father.

"But," Lucius set his cutlery down and eyed the room once more, "You said you waited tables."

Draco gave him his full attention then, "No, I said I sold coffee, which I do. I'm the majority shareholder of a company that encompasses 63 coffee shops, 14 bookshops, 3 boutique coffee outlets, a catering arm, a haulage arm, and a small plantation in Indonesia."

Harry gaped at him and Draco took his hand across the table, willing him to speak, "What about this place?"

"This is one of mine. I bought it just before Christmas."

"Why didn't you say something!?" Lucius demanded.

"I don't see what difference it makes. I'm the same person now as I was when I _did_ wait tables. I'd like to think that the amount of money I make has no bearing on my ability to be your son."

"Of course it doesn't!"

Draco took in the hurt expression on his father's face and found that he believed it. He pursed his lips and said quietly, "Well, maybe stop acting like it does."

"I was worried about you, that's all," Lucius reached out to him but thought better of it when he saw his sons hand grip Harry's tighter.

"You made this," Harry indicated the rose, glancing around and privately –correctly, he knew somehow- thinking the same of all the other ornaments in the room. Just as he'd known when he'd stepped into Draco's flat for the first time, but hadn't quite known how to broach the subject.

Draco met his gaze and held it steady, as if to prove that he could hide what was behind his eyes, Harry was beginning to realise he was disturbingly gifted at that.

"Yup."

Lucius gave him an odd look, "You're very talented."

Draco met the compliment with another shrug and made to turn his attention back to his plate, only to find that it was empty.

"A talent like that could be extremely profitable, could it not?"

"It's not my job."

"But it could be," Lucius pushed, "In part at least."

"That's not what he meant," Harry murmured, a cold ache sitting on his chest, "It was supposed to be my job."

"But Daddy you have a job," Astrid giggled, entirely missing the atmosphere that had fallen over the table.

Harry felt completely exposed, terrified even; something was crushing his windpipe from inside his neck and he was trapped, confronted with truths that he'd fought hard to avoid. He realised then that those feelings weren't his at all, they were Draco's, and though his face hid them all, his heart transmitted them like a beacon.

"You want ice-cream?" Draco asked of Astrid, who's face lit up at the prospect, "Strawberry?"

She clapped and Draco, rather than call over the waitress, excused himself for the kitchen.

"Care to explain that?" Lucius asked.

"No, I don't. I'll be back in a minute," Harry told him, heading after Draco through a door marked 'Staff Only' with a brass plate.

Draco was at the end of a long corridor, talking to someone through another door he'd propped open with his foot. He turned and let it fall closed behind him, startled to find Harry there watching him.

"Why do you always deflect everything?"

Draco shook his head, "Not here." He came forward and took Harry's hand, pulling him into a finely decorated office and closing them in.

Harry was on the verge of prompting further when he was pressed back up against the door; plaintive lips pressed against his, tears that weren't his own fell down his face.

"I don't understand you. If you believed that none of it was real, then-"

"There's no 'if'," Draco whispered, "I did believe that. But that was the only you I had."

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Love love love! **

**x X x**

**'Rora**


	19. Naked

**A/N:  
><strong>

**Well, after a very very long wait, Ch19 is finally here! Woop!  
><strong>

**I need to put in a big massive thank you (in fact, we all do) to the wonderful SuperJade - without her motivational skills this chapter probably wouldn't be up until Christmas! :O  
><strong>

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer: **

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and Aspirin.**

* * *

><p>Harry and Draco exited the office just as a stocky man in a chef's hat emerged from what Harry presumed to be the kitchen with a mountain of pink ice cream in a crystal sundae glass; bright red sauce, swirled cream, and multicoloured sprinkles were all piled high on top.<p>

"Will it pass, boss?" he asked, making to light the sparklers sticking out of the top.

Draco blinked, summoning his mood back to something acceptable for the general populous. "Yeah, I think that'll do it," he forced with a chuckle.

Harry felt at odds with normalcy so soon after he and Draco's conversation, but he'd try, for Draco's sake. "She's going to be climbing the walls after all that sugar," he lightly accused out of the corner of his mouth as they followed the chef through the door to the main area of the pub.

"Oh shush you," Draco laughed, smacking him in the chest lightly with the back of his hand.

Harry smiled and shook his head, getting the hang of this game, "Between you and your father she's going to be spoiled rotten by the time she's a teenager. You can deal with that by the way," he joked.

"Happy to darling," Draco leaned over, kissed his cheek, and mussed up his hair for good measure. "Thanks Tony," he said to the departing chef.

"Any time, back to the fires of glory for me, give me a shout if you need anything else."

"You like?" Draco asked his daughter as he and Harry retook their seats; she beamed at him and took up her spoon as a navvy would a pickaxe.

"Hang on," Draco said, picking out the spent sparklers and placing them on his own plate. "Continue," he indulged her with a sweeping gesture.

Lucius sagged back into his chair and clasped his hands in his lap.

"What?" Draco asked him.

"You remind me of your mother the way you dote on her."

Draco's insides warmed, thinking that this might be the highest compliment he'd ever received. "Thank you," he said, and so the four of them sat in harmony as the ice-cream mountain was slowly devoured.

"Oh dear sweet Jesus!"

"Language Richard!" Draco admonished the bundle of rain, thick black wool, and expensive Italian leather that disrupted their peace some time later.

"This is insane Draco," Richard gaped, wandering around with his eyes mostly to the ceiling, prodding and inspecting things at random, "Am I in the same place? How did you _do_ all this? Christ almighty..." Richard turned to him expecting an answer but his eyes fell on Lucius instead and he quickly turned his attention back to the room, resisting the urge to pick a fight. "Where did that wall go?"

"I took a sledgehammer to it, twas fun. And what's with the tone of surprise?"

"Hey, I know you're good love, but this place was a soul-sucking hovel; it took me a week to get the grime out of my suit jacket. And that was my _favourite_ suit jacket."

"I know dear, it was very hard for you."

Richard nodded solemnly, "Speaking of sacrifices, a fair maiden is wandering into your midst," Richard tilted his head toward the door just as it opened.

"Hi Richard, um, is-"

"And that ladies and gentlemen, signals the end of our dinner," Draco informed his family and stood, "Just a moment Cassie."

"You have to go already Papa?"

"No my darling, y-" Draco stopped himself, turning his head just slightly toward Richard. He was flashing a well-bread smile but the slight twitch in his left eyebrow screamed: 'Don't you fucking dare Draco, I can't be around that man all night and not kill him'.

"Listen, I have to get back to work, but you're welcome to stick around. People will start arriving soon, you can get a drink, mingle a bit."

"What people?"

"Friends, staff, hopefully a few Joe Publics. It's opening night, can't have that without people," Draco smiled. "You wanna stick around and see your Auntie Asha little one?"

Draco led Cassie into his office once this was settled, he bowed his head just enough for Richard to note his apology as they passed and hoped to god he didn't return to carnage.

"So, I suppose you're wondering why the big scary boss man has hauled you into a meeting?" Draco began, taking a seat and motioning for Cassie to do the same.

She clasped her hands in her lap, separated them, and put them back together again, "Just a little."

"How are you finding things at the coffee shop?"

"Very well Sir, I think Shaun's happy with me."

"Indeed. He and I had lunch today, and we got to talking about you..."

"Oh?" she laughed over her nerves, "All good I hope?"

Draco leaned forward to study her face, "We wondered if you might like a bit more responsibility?"

She straightened her back and blinked.

"To be more specific, we wondered if you wanted his job."

"Shaun's job? You want me to manage the shop?"

Draco nodded very deliberately.

"I'm sorry Sir, I'm a bit lost for words, I didn't expect- is he leaving then?"

"No, he's moving up to regional manager."

"Which region?"

"This one."

"But Sir," she bit her lip, "That's your job."

Draco lounged back in his chair and gave an amused shake of his head, dancing his fingers over the polished walnut armrest, "It _used_ to be my job. I should have given it up when I took over as head of the company but somehow I've always found a way to put it off," he winked. "Now... I'm ready to hand the reigns over to someone else. It's time."

"You want to spend more time with your daughter."

Draco held up his hands, "We're getting off track. Now, you can have a few days to think about it if you need them, but I will say that it's an extra six grand a year and you'd assign your own hours."

Cassie beamed, "I don't need to think about it Sir, I'm in!"

"I'm adding one final condition."

"Yes Sir?"

Draco sucked in a deep breath and pursed his lips for a moment, extending a finger toward her, "For the love of **Christ** - stop calling me 'Sir'."

"Sure thing boss!" and she grabbed him into a hug as he stood.

"Cassie, this is too far in the other direction," Draco wheezed.

* * *

><p>Harry turned his head to the staff door as it opened and the young woman from before bounced out of it, closely followed by Draco who sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.<p>

Richard looked up from where he sat with Astrid, "You better watch it Matt - dragging girls off to your office and bringing them back all rosy faced – you'll get a reputation."

Draco rolled his eyes at him from the doorway, "I try not to think about it," he drawled, just as Cassie piped up with, "Mr Hart promoted me!"

"Finally got around to that did you?" Richard asked of Draco, who merely shrugged.

"You knew!?"

"I was sworn to secrecy m'lady," Richard replied in a tone too pompous to be sincere. She rolled her eyes but made her way over to him in spite of this. Draco briefly considered that they were being rather chummy for two people who barely knew each other but he pushed the thought out of his mind. He offered up an indolent salute to Ron and Asha who'd arrived in his absence, "All good through here?"

"Free beer," Ron grinned.

Draco lifted an eyebrow just slightly and shook his head, "What are you like..." he mused to no one in particular before slinking behind the bar, casting his gaze over his shoulder as he went. Harry gave him an unsure little wave and was relieved to receive a wink in return – he hadn't been forgotten.

He looked on as Draco proceeded to enter into some kind of conversation with the barman. He pulled a folder from one of the cupboards and flipped it open; his forehead creased as he pointed things out, glancing at the other man at intervals and giving him time to respond. At one point the man held up his hands in front of his chest and seemed to apologise for something; Draco nodded, apparently placated. When eventually he stepped out from behind the bar, Harry had hoped that he would come over to him. His chest lifted and he brushed a stray strand of hair away from his eyes. He almost huffed in frustration when Draco headed back through the staff door without paying heed to anyone.

In the time he was gone a few more faces drifted in from the cold and gravitated toward Cassie who launched into excited whispers about her meeting with 'Mr Hart'. Asha and Ron commandeered a table and sipped their drinks with their heads bowed together. Harry saw the way their eyes followed each other and their fingers found each other. In all his years with Hermione Harry had never seen Ron so at ease, and he was glad he'd finally found someone who seemed to accept him for whatever he wanted to be.

Richard had Astrid perched on his hip and they parodied a tango around the others while she repeated French phrases back to him.

"Must you do that?" Lucius asked him tersely.

Richard turned in the direction of the voice and paused to gather his response.

"You have an issue Lucius?"

Lucius frowned at the informality, "I'd appreciate you not filling her head with French nonsense."

"As a Frenchman I find that highly offensive," Richard retorted in a sugar sweet tone that hinted at bodily violence around the next corner.

"I didn't know you were French?" Harry piped in, hoping to diffuse the tension, "You don't sound it."

"I was shipped out to boarding school over here when I was eight."

"Eight? Merlin that's young!"

"You uh," Richard leaned in, glancing around them, "Might want to nix the wizardisms Harry," he smiled.

"Oh, right, yeah," Harry blushed, "But I think Lucius is right, she's probably a bit too young to be learning another language."

"Oh I doubt that's Lucius' reasoning. '_Matt'_," Richard coughed, "Was bilingual before he could walk."

"He was?" Harry turned to Lucius.

"Yes, well, it used to be a family requirement. That is no longer the case," Lucius replied carefully.

Harry saw something flash in Richard's eyes, but then Astrid was patting his shoulder, "Uncle Richard, I want to go see Papa."

"Not so sure that's a good idea honey."

"Why not!?"

"Astrid, you know better than to make demands of people!" Harry scolded her.

Richard waved him off, thinking to himself that the girl definitely took after Draco. "Well darling, because your Papa's under a great deal of pressure right now, he has a lot of work to do," he held a finger to her lips to stave off her protests, "And I'm sure that if we went to see him he'd give you his undivided attention. _But_, later he'll be ten times more stressed than he was to begin with, and let me tell you little one – your papa is downright scary when he's stressed. People have been known to flee in terror," he joked.

Harry felt a swell of guilt for selfishly hankering for Draco's attention all evening. At that moment the staff door banged open to reveal Draco in profile, "Richard, Papers, Now!"

"Maybe_ I_ should flee, huh? You reckon I'd make it little one?"

* * *

><p>The minutes ticked by and others arrived, all greeted by someone or other, all presumably known to Draco. Astrid had snuck her way onto her Uncle Ron's lap and listened with rapt attention as Asha wove her an energetic story about giraffes. Harry and Lucius made themselves comfortable in a circle of armchairs near a window overlooking the street. Passersby gained speed as fat droplets of rain escaped the sky and dove toward them en masse.<p>

"It's a lot to take in..." Harry opined. "This whole separate life of his..."

Lucius gazed into his glass of brandy and didn't reply.

"Aren't you happy though?" Harry prodded him. "You were worried he was impoverished, but it turns out he's thriving..."

"It settles my mind in some ways," Lucius conceded.

"In some ways..." Harry repeated.

"Do you trust this Richard character?"

Harry started at the abrupt detour in their conversation, "Well, I don't really know him."

"And yet you let him, and this _Asha _girl, take liberties with your daughter."

"Take liberties?" Harry scoffed. "Look, I trust your son's judgment, are you trying to say you don't?"

"Presuming it's acceptable to teach her another language is taking liberties."

"I think you're overreacting. It was a few phrases, she was having fun."

"I just think it's unnecessary."

Harry smirked and bowed forward, lowering his voice, "I think it's unnecessary to have to call my husband by an assumed name when we're in public, but there you go."

Lucius shook his head and took a swig of brandy, "Speak of the devil," he indicated across the pub.

Sure enough, Draco had resurfaced with Richard at his side. It looked for a moment as though Richard was pointing at Harry, but Draco followed his line of sight and his eyes settled on a point just over Harry's head. Harry turned to see a sharply dressed man with a cane making his way past the window. Harry recognised something in the grey hair and moustache but couldn't quite put his finger on what.

From where they sat at the opposite side of the pub, it looked to Lucius like all of the colour had suddenly been sucked out of his son's expression. Richard whispered something in Draco's ear and he nodded, pausing for a moment to gather a breath before snapping his head up and around the pub in quick succession. Satisfied, he took a step toward the heavy main door just as it creaked open. He hesitated for a second and then made to continue.

"Don't you dare boy!" scolded the tall unforgiving figure in the doorway. The man was glistening with raindrops and he laboured somewhat on his right leg, but none of this detracted from his commanding presence. The room fell silent.

Draco hung back and Richard nudged him softly with his elbow, saying something Lucius couldn't decipher out of the corner of his mouth.

"So _this_ is the illicit love child you've been neglecting your responsibilities for, is it?" he said, moving further into the pub. Cassie and a few others shuffled out of his way.

Draco opened his mouth to object but thought better of it. "It is that," he measured instead.

Lucius watched with curiosity as the man made his way around, scrutinizing things here and there without a word, nudging those not fast enough to get out of his way with his cane. It seemed that almost everyone recognised some significance in this man, his son being no exception. Eventually he disappeared around a corner; Lucius found the whole thing frankly rather insolent and it angered him that Draco made no move to correct it.

Instead he saw Draco's eyes close, one arm coasted across his middle until his fingers found the flesh of his hip and dug themselves in. Richard prised them away and let them drop to Draco's side, whispering something else that caused Draco to turn his head in Harry's direction. Harry furrowed his eyebrows and mouthed 'You okay?'

Draco's eyes sparkled and a small smile broke free in the corners of his mouth, 'Don't ask,' he mouthed back.

"Who _is_ that guy? Public health or something?" a girl who'd been shuffled near Harry and Lucius' table whispered to another girl next to her.

"No, that's Jack Henderson. As in-"

Harry understood then why he'd recognised the man.

"Got it, former big scary boss-man," the girl confirmed.

"Former boss, still quite scary if you ask me," her friend muttered before they simmered back to silence.

Tension pulled at the room, no one moved except to share furtive glances with those around them. Eventually Draco shuffled his feet and crossed his arms, prompting Richard to call out: "So, what say you old man?" in the direction Henderson had disappeared.

He got no response but for the clunking sounds of the man's cane as he wandered around at his own pace. At length he reappeared and paced over to the bar proper, knocking his fist on it like an instruction. The disconcerted bar manager looked to Draco for instruction.

"Double scotch, no ice," Draco translated.

Henderson turned, leaning against the bar. He allowed a small smile for the first time since setting foot inside the place, "A lot of blood, sweat, and hard graft in this son."

"Sir," Draco said with a single nod of his head. The whole room held its breath; Lucius gaped like an outraged trout but nobody paid him any mind.

The barman handed Henderson his glass of whiskey and he raised it slightly, "You do an old man proud." The whole room seemed to exhale in unison.

Draco bit his cheek, mirth in his eyes as he pulled the man into a one-armed hug, "You're a right git sometimes, you know that?"

"Someone's got to keep you on your toes."

Draco laughed as he pulled away, "Right people!" he clapped his hands in the air, "We're officially open!"

* * *

><p>"Who brought <em>that<em>?"

Draco chucked, "That's Harry."

His friend squinted at him, "One of yours then. _Damn_ you always did have taste."

Harry was dancing with Asha on the other side of the pub, oblivious to the fact that he was being mentally undressed by one of Draco's old university classmates. Lucius didn't quite know what to make of this character: he'd unceremoniously plonked himself in the middle of he and Draco's conversation without a whisper of an apology, but he _was_ fairly entertaining – if also fairly drunk.

"Can I have him when you're done?"

Lucius balked but Draco simply smirked.

"Yeah, sure - if you want me to break your fingers first."

"Ah, but we made such a great team Matt," the man sighed, clapping Draco on the shoulder, "You'd use them up and spit them out, and I'd be waiting just around the corner to put their _tiny little pieces_ back together again like the selfless, noble creature I am. Good times."

Draco frowned, a flicker of shame cast its way toward Lucius.

"I'm retired."

"Pity," his friend pouted.

"Believe it or not, the ability to emotionally devastate grown men isn't exactly a gift I'm all that proud of."

"You used to be."

"I used to be a lot of things," Draco muttered, conscious that his father was boring a hole into the side of his skull. Unable to take the scrutiny he got up and stalked outside, gaining Harry's attention as he did. Lucius gestured that he'd see to it but waited a moment before following him out.

"I didn't realise you smoked."

Draco leaned against the wall, hands cupped to his mouth as he lit a cigarette from the emergency pack he kept in his coat pocket.

The silence between them was cold; Draco deliberately stared at the window of the shop across the road, deciding that the half-naked mannequin looked much too abused to be decent.

Lucius' temper grew with every breath Draco dragged through his cigarette.

"Stop it," Draco bit out eventually.

"Stop what exactly?"

"Stop judging me like you have any idea what it was like for me."

"What it was like for you? What about what it was like for _us_? And all the while here you were-"

"Here I was doing _what_? Gallivanting around town? Having a merry little party?"

"Betraying your husband!"

"I didn't know I had a fucking husband!"

"That's beside the point!"

Draco turned his head slowly and eyeballed him with his mouth hanging loose, "How is that beside the point!?"

"You could have retained a bit of class!"

Draco flicked his cigarette away with such force that it bounced off the opposite curb. His jaw worked its way through a string of possible obscenities before he settled for grinding his teeth together and lighting up another cigarette.

"When I came here," he started with a false overlay of calm, "I promised myself that I would pull my life back together, that I would live the way he'd want me to," Draco jerked his head toward the door to indicate Harry.

"So..." Draco exhaled heavily, "I get a job, I get a flat, friends, university, a passable wardrobe... And I'm still in bits on the inside, but on the outside, it's starting to come together. And more and more often, these guys are coming up to me, with their big bright eyes and their lopsided smiles..."

Lucius snarled and clenched his fists.

"... And they're so fucking hopeful and so fucking naive and I'd look at them and I'd see _myself_ staring back: That idiotic moron that walked into this nightmare in the first place! I saw that in them and I wanted to _break_ it. I wanted to take it away from them before they did themselves some real damage. And I did. Over and over and over again. It was like fucking therapy!"

Lucius' anger had turned to something more disturbed but Draco was too incensed to notice.

"And then came the ones that wanted to _fix_ me. That wanted to force their way into my life and _understand_ me, and save me from myself, and it made me want to fucking vomit!

"If I was broken it was because _he_ broke me and how dare they assume-" Draco cut himself off and took a moment to gather himself. "I mean, to what end? So they could take his place? Did they really think themselves so fucking exalted? They'd come along and they'd worm their arrogant little way into my path and I'd _decimate_ them for their trouble. And they deserved every inch of it."

"I was a very angry person back then," he added thoughtfully.

Lucius stepped over and leaned back against the wall next to him.

"So what changed?"

Draco tossed his second cigarette to the ground and shrugged, "I finally met a guy I didn't want to break," Draco answered softly. "I cared about him, I didn't want to hurt him. I thought that meant I was ready for... something I wasn't."

Draco's eyes stung to think about Cal now: How he'd accepted Draco's decision, waited patiently in the wings for a someday that he knew might never happen. He'd never pushed for it or expected it; there were never any strings, hard though it was for Draco to accept that at first. In truth, Draco had always assumed that that someday _would_ come and he'd be able to repay some of Cal's faith, make the wait worthwhile. He'd convinced himself even that that's what Harry would have wanted for him. But now that would never happen.

"And?" Lucius pressed.

"And he got hurt anyway."

* * *

><p>That night their bed - Harry's bed - seemed much too vast to Draco. Harry had waved off his advances, taken hold of his wandering hands and stilled them in his own. He'd kissed his cheek and told him, 'I'm too tired tonight,' and 'Can't I just hold you?' That had been an hour ago and now Draco's skin itched with unpunished guilt; he dug his fingernails into the palm of his hand until the skin broke around them.<p>

"I love you Harry," he whispered to the darkened room.

"Mmloveyoutoo," Harry mumbled back on reflex, mostly still asleep.

"I know I haven't said it yet, but I do, I never stopped."

Harry was waking now, eyes scrunching and fluttering in turn, "Hey," he soothed, bringing a hand to smooth out a few flyaway strands of Draco's hair, "I know."

"I tried to pack it down and separate myself from it, to change it into something I could live with. I made you into my measuring stick, my judge and jury. On my brightest days and on my darkest, I'd ask myself 'What would Harry think?'. And I didn't always live up to that, I couldn't be that person, but I tried, I swear to you I tried. And now here you are, and it seems like all the decisions I've made over the years... the things I've somehow justified in your absence..."

Harry rolled onto his back and closed his eyes again, "I know you weren't faithful."

There it was. Harry wanted to take away the sting of that admission, but he found he needed to let it breathe, to let it hang naked between them, just to see if he could bear it.

Draco was winded, he'd thought he'd have more time to build up to the gory truth, to pave the way for his declarations of regret and beg for the forgiveness he wasn't sure he deserved. But, _there it was._

"I'm not angry," Harry said at last, once he'd decided it was true.

"You're not?"

"It hurts," Harry's voice became hoarse, "I hate the thought of it, and this irrational -I know it's irrational- part of me thinks... that if you loved me, dead or not, you wouldn't, you couldn't..."

"I do love you, you have to believe that. I just needed... I don't even know anymore."

"Give me time Draco, we'll be alright, I promise you. Let's get back to sleep."

Draco allowed himself to be pulled into Harry's arms; found solace in the proprietary way Harry's hands roamed his chest.

"I'm yours, always yours," he whispered, "I'm so sorry Harry."

"Shhhhh."

Harry nuzzled into the back of Draco's neck, breathing in the scent of him as he drifted off, but Draco found that sleep wouldn't come, and so he lay in the dark contemplating his life's mistakes.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Sorry again for the ridiculous wait!**

**Xx**


	20. Flicker

**A/N:**

**A long wait I know, things have been hectic here – hope you like it! **

**Warnings:**

**Will be HPDM, will contain violence, strong language, and various other adult themes. I would recommend that you be of age in your resident country to read this story.**

**Disclaimer:**

**I don't own these characters or this world. These ramblings make me no profit. I am prone to bribery in the form of reviews and sleep. **

* * *

><p>Draco padded along the corridors of his father's house in the dark. In truth, the sun was already halfway above the horizon, but there were no windows to light his way; it didn't occur to him to make use of the sconces lining the old stone walls. This part of the house was practically medieval, Draco thought. He let his fingertips brush along the gothic carvings etched into the walls as he made his way, taking care to step around the bronzed suits of armour that stood sentry every twelve or so feet.<p>

A week had passed since the opening of the Briar. Harry and Lucius had been oddly subdued, each in their own way, but Astrid was full of life; things in the manor had begun to settle at least.

Draco stood now before a heavy set of double doors. He tried the ornate brass handles but found them stuck in place. He tried more forcefully, and then even with magic, but they wouldn't budge. He scowled at them – though more out of annoyance than surprise - and huffed out a breath before marching away in protest. Some way further along the corridor he stopped in front of a mottled old mirror. He stroked the frame in an odd sort of way – using the back of his ring finger in a sideways motion. The mirror creaked open like a forgotten door; a few wooden steps led the way down into a narrow passageway. Draco followed it along, shuddering on Ron's behalf as his face broke an ancient spider web.

Draco found his destination with the ease of a child who had long roamed these corridors. The child had relished this secret world, emboldened by knowledge – vindicated, terrified, and enthralled by the secret theory that this world cast hope on: Lucius Malfoy was fallible.

From this theory crept dangerous dreams: Lucius Malfoy was weak. He could be opposed, if only the moment were ripe for it – though it never seemed to be, not to the child, not just yet. One day, he'd tell himself, one day.

Draco smiled and chewed his lip softly as he remembered. He pushed open the back door – the servant's door – and picked his way across a room lined with leather-bound magical texts. The large, empty, gilded frame hanging on the back wall was just as he remembered it.

He placed his hand on the uniformly black canvass, "Are you there?" he whispered.

* * *

><p>Harry scrubbed at his fingernails. Flecks of soap and nauseous tears burned and soothed his eyes in turn. Dried blood turned wet and warm slipped down the sinkhole even as its metallic taste once again flooded the sides of his mouth. Harry turned and stumbled just in time to catch the cold porcelain of the toilet bowl before another round of bile launched itself from the pit of his stomach.<p>

He rested his forehead against the cool rim and shuddered a few heavy breaths.

He emerged from the bathroom to find Draco gone; he squinted at the rumpled sheets on the bed dumbly until the bedroom door opened and caused his bones to jump about a foot in the air, leaving the rest of his body safely rooted to the floor.

"Twitchy this morning aren't you?" Draco said, arching an amused eyebrow that quickly morphed into a frown: "Are you alright?"

Harry shook himself and worked at a smile, "You just surprised me is all."

Draco crossed to him and put the back of his hand to Harry's cheek and then to his forehead. He gently smoothed the heavy bags under Harry's eyes with his thumbs.

"You look like you've been hit by a truck."

"Gee, thanks."

"Harry-"

"Look, I just didn't sleep well."

Draco paused , fighting the sneer that wanted to take hold of his upper lip. He looked Harry up and down and clucked his tongue once. "I'm a bad influence on you apparently," he said in the end, "Get back into bed."

"Excuse me?"

Draco shrugged in the face of Harry's indignation, "There's nothing wrong with you but surprise and a touch of sleep deprivation, fine, good for you, but you're going to get your arse back into bed and eat something before you go anywhere today."

"Why should I?"

Draco floundered. He and Richard had had this argument countless times over the years – the usual way for either of them to answer that question was to pull an impressive 'because otherwise I'm going to smack you one' scowl. Somehow Draco doubted that would help here.

"Let me take care of you," he tried instead, refusing to acknowledge to himself how much of a pansy it made him sound.

Harry held his guard, valiantly ignoring the ripple that dropped through his belly for a whole six seconds before he sighed and gave in. He turned his head back to Draco when he reached the edge of the bed. Draco gave a smile of encouragement and came forward to tuck the duvet around him.

He perched beside him and tucked a lock of wayward hair behind Harry's ear, letting his hand linger on the pillow.

"Where were you anyway?" Harry whispered.

"Hunting for a bathroom, since _someone_ was hogging ours..." Draco chided him playfully. "Nah, not really, wanted to catch up with some of the portraits."

'_Ask me again,'_ Harry thought. _'Ask me what's wrong. Maybe _this_ you would listen, would understand...'_

Draco leaned down and kissed Harry's temple. He wouldn't push the subject – it would make him a hypocrite for one thing. Harry would talk when and if he wanted to.

'_Stop asking me to hurt you...'_ Harry swallowed, hard – part of him praying that Draco had heard his thoughts and the other part dreading the same.

"Do you have a sore throat?" Concern creased Draco's eyes.

"No," Harry half-croaked. "How's your back?"

Draco's eyes darkened, his lips parted just slightly, "It's... going to remind me of you all day."

Harry turned his face away but Draco's fingers softly gripped his chin and pulled his gaze back.

"Do you have any idea how perfect you are Harry? What did I ever do to deserve you?"

Harry started to protest but those same fingers of Draco's moved to still his mouth.

"What do you want for breakfast?"

"I'm not hungry. Honestly – I don't think I could eat."

"Not pregnant are you?" Draco joked.

Harry winced, "How could I be?"

Draco felt a wave of unexpected anguish and realised it was Harry's.

"Hey," he soothed, but had no idea what to say to reassure Harry further. Did Harry want to be? Was that it?

"No, that's not it," Harry sighed, rolling onto his side and hating the sheer dumb luck of their bond telepathy, or whatever it was that occasionally granted them access to each other's thoughts.

Draco wrinkled his brow and waited for Harry to elaborate. When he didn't, Draco tried instead: "How about just some toast and an egg?"

Harry groaned and dug his fingers through his hair.

* * *

><p>Draco had had a fairly frustrating morning at work. So far, he'd ruined his favourite tie – or rather a hopeless waitress had, crashed his computer, and reduced three people to tears. He leaned back against a rough wall and tried not to think about nicotine as he waited for Harry.<p>

"Boo!"

"Jesus H Christ Harry!"

Harry had the decency to look at least a little guilty, "Sorry, couldn't resist – payback for this morning."

Draco puzzled over this explanation for a moment before he remembered, "Oh. Well, you're looking a little less peaky now."

"Told you."

"Come on then, I'm half bloody starved."

They walked in comfortable silence; Draco felt the tension drift off his shoulders with Harry by his side. Harry stepped in behind him to give another pedestrian room to pass; Draco stopped dead in his tracks. His gaze followed the older man as he walked by, hunched over with eyes that sought the ground on instinct. He wore a faded green sweatshirt and a pair of blue jeans that looked like they'd ceased being fashionable in the early nineties; one of this trainers was coming loose from its sole.

"Scott, is that you?"

The man jerked around and squinted from under the rim of his baseball cap, "Matt?"

His face was pallid, scabby, and smudged with dirt. Draco took in a deep breath and grinned, "I knew it was you!" he said as he pulled the slightly stunned man into a friendly hug, "It's been, what, 6 years?"

Scott pulled back and smiled, "Nearly 7."

Harry looked between them as they stared at each other, bemused. A child ran headlong into the back of Harry's legs then and stumbled. Scott reached out a hand to keep him from cowping backwards just as the boy's mother caught up.

"Oh, thank y-" she stopped short as she looked up and took in Scott's appearance. She snatched her son into her arms as though confronted with a monster.

"What!?" Draco spat at her; she recoiled further but didn't move or speak.

Draco audibly snarled at her, "Well!?"

Harry took a step back, shocked at the volatile swing in Draco's mood.

"Matt..." Scott said in a soothing tone, "Leave it. Please. You're upsetting the kid."

Draco glanced at him and then back to the mother, who still hadn't moved. "Well get going then!" he dismissed her.

Scott sighed, "That wasn't necessary you know."

"Fucking _was_," Draco crossed his arms in front of his chest and watched her scurry off up the street with her wailing son in tow.

"Whole world's full of people like her Matt, you gonna take them all on?"

"Somebody should."

Scott shook his head and looked at Harry for the first time, but didn't seem to expect an introduction.

Harry blinked, bewildered, "Sorry about him," he extended his hand to Scott and introduced himself.

"Uh, Scott McQuarrie," he replied, taking the hand but barely gripping it. Harry noticed a painful looking sore on the back of it and assumed this was why.

"Scott's an old friend of mine," Draco explained, "Harry's my husband."

"Wow," Scott looked impressed, "Little Matty's all grown up."

"Aw weesht you," Draco said, shoving his shoulder lightly.

An awkward pause settled between the three of them.

"So," Scott started at last, "That flicker finally turned into a flame, huh?"

Draco ducked his head, "Yeah," he said in a small voice. Harry wondered why he sounded so ashamed. "How are you doing?"

"Better," Scott nodded, "Well, not _better_ obviously... Just taking each day as it comes really, I reckon today's a good one."

Draco finally looked up, "Where are you staying?"

"I've got a good place, down near the docks. Its quiet, not too much trouble, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," Draco bit his lip and looked around, "It's bloody freezing huh?"

"Typical Scottish winter alright - is it just me or are they getting colder?"

Draco slipped his long wool overcoat from his shoulders.

"What are you-"

"I owe you a jacket, remember?"

Scott's head jerked backwards and his eyes rolled up as if he were trying to remember, "No, I... Hey, I'd forgotten all about that."

Draco pursed his lips, "Well, I hadn't. I'd give you back your own but it got nicked. Hopefully this will do."

"I-"

Stubbornness had set into Draco's face, "I'll be offended if you don't take it."

"Always were high maintenance," Scott said in the end, catching Harry's eye for a moment.

"He really is," Harry joined in, though he had no idea what on earth was going on.

"Oi! I'll knock the pair of yer heads together in a minute!"

Scott laughed in spite of himself, "Oh Matt..." he said, thinking privately of the quiet, timid, frightened little runt he'd somehow collected on the streets all those years ago.

Draco lowered his eyes again, "Well, I guess we'd better get going."

"Yeah, me too, got a man to see about a dog and all that."

"Take care of yourself, yeah?"

Scott nodded and started to walk away, "You deserved it Matt."

"What?"

"That flame..."

Scott did walk away then; he pulled on Draco's coat as he went and didn't look back. Draco watched him go and then started moving again - with purpose - in the direction of the Coffee Shop. Harry practically had to jog to keep up.

"Draco, you're crying,"

"Am I?"

The dead colour of Draco's voice concerned Harry almost as much as his tears.

"Your friend back there, his face - he didn't look well."

"No."

Harry hesitated, "Shouldn't he be in the hospital or something?"

"There's no cure, not even wizards have a cure - he's dying."

"I-"

"Drop it. Please. You couldn't possibly understand - I don't ever want you to have to understand. No amount of words can make it better so don't waste your breath on them."

* * *

><p>Draco said nothing further on route to the Coffee Shop, nor when they sat down at the table with Richard and Asha.<p>

"Ground control to Major Draco?" Asha joked, kissing his cheek and mussing his hair, but Draco paid no attention.

* * *

><p>"<em>What a bunch of assholes!" Scott cursed.<em>

_Draco's whole frame was slumped as he trailed along at his side, "This is hopeless."_

"_Hey, there's always hope kiddo, even if it's just a flicker."_

_Draco simply shrugged and kicked a clump of newspaper into the road._

"_Look here," Scott grabbed his hand and tugged him down an alleyway cut with shadows. They stopped in front of a battered doorway; the windows either side were boarded up. Scott took a screwdriver out of his back pocket and got to work on the lock while Draco kept watch._

_They snuck inside; the building was a tomb of rotten wood and mould. The piles of rubbish here and there were reassuring: this place had been violated before; the owners may have recently bothered to patch up their security breaches but it was unlikely from the mess that they did so on a regular basis. _

"_Come on," Scott urged, "Let's try upstairs."_

* * *

><p>Draco jumped, "Huh?"<p>

"Alright?" Richard asked.

"Mmm," Draco nodded, staring down into the mug of tea Asha had handed him. "We uh, bumped into Scott on the way over."

"Scott... McQuarrie?"

"Yeah."

"Poor bastard," Asha murmured.

Draco chewed absently on his lower lip, "He was so thin... Not long now I reckon," his eyes glazed over.

* * *

><p><em>Draco dug around in their carrier bag of spoils and came up with the other half of his sausage roll from that morning. He toed the bag over to Scott as he began to munch.<em>

"_D'you 'hink," he started through a mouthful of cold pastry, "That, like, if elephants could talk-"_

_Scott tensed and held up a hand to stop him._

"_Did you hear somethin' kid?"_

_Draco shook his head slowly and tried to listen. Nothing stirred except the wind outside._

"_Never mind," Scott shrugged. "What're'ye natterin' on about elephants?"_

_Draco grinned, "Well, d'you reckon they'd be all-"_

_An obvious thump echoed through the building from downstairs._

"_Shit," they both muttered under their breath. Draco hid the bag of food beneath an upturned cardboard box in the corner as quietly as he could._

_Footsteps crept up the stairs, they both tried to look as underfed and miserable as they could and prayed for some other worthless sod that wouldn't give them any trouble. _

"_What 'ave we 'ere then!? Oi, Briggsy, in 'ere!" _

_The man hanging off the doorframe smirked at them. He was tall and beady eyed – so was his friend when he came. Neither were particularly muscular or broad in the shoulders but they both oozed a misplaced - chemical - sense of righteousness. This was far more dangerous._

_Scott made the standard offering of: "Don't want no bother mate," but both he and Draco knew that it wouldn't be enough: They'd just become a thing of sport, and not for the first time that night._

"_We'll see abou' that," the first man said, "See, me an' ma mate were lookin' fir a party..."_

_The men were closing in. _

"_Uh, great," Scott stalled, moving over to the other side of the room. The men followed. "We've uh, got some booze stashed. Kid go get the booze, we're havin' a party."_

_There was no booze, Draco knew this. Just as he knew that 'party' did not mean they were about to don little paper hats. Scott was giving him an out._

"_Nah, blondie's stayin'."_

"_Matt, go," Scott said quietly out of the corner of his mouth._

_Draco was shut down with fear, frozen to the spot._

"_Matt, run for fuck sake!"_

_Something in Draco's head clicked back into place. He made a dash for the door and slipped under the second man's arm just as he lunged to block his way._

"_You little shit!"_

_Draco reached the top of the stairs just as the man caught up with him again. He felt a hand grab the back of his jumper just as he started to descend, but then, somehow, his foot hit the bottom step. The man cursed in confusion as Draco escaped out into the alleyway._

* * *

><p>Richard studied Draco; he pursed his lips then took a swig of coffee.<p>

"Fucked up way to die that," he said eventually; Draco flinched but stayed silent and vacant.

"What?" Harry asked.

"AIDS," Asha said quietly.

Harry gave her a blank look; Draco caught it out of the corner of his eye, "God," he laughed bitterly, putting his forehead in his hands.

* * *

><p><em>Draco crouched behind a dumpster a little way down the alley. The smell of his own vomit reeked into his nostrils from the puddle in front of him but he didn't dare move away. He gripped his hands to his knees to try to stop them from shaking; his eyes were trained on the doorway.<em>

_The men slipped out some time later, heads down, not interested in running into him or anyone else for that matter. They headed back out to the street and were gone, as though nothing had happened._

_Draco let go of the breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He darted back inside before anyone could see._

"_Scott?" he whispered as he reached the room where they'd been._

__A groan was the only response. __

* * *

><p>"To have your body shut down piece by piece like that," Richard continued, "Crumbling under the weight of... god only knows what next."<p>

Harry felt sickened for the second time that day.

"Stop it," Asha snapped.

"And all the while, the whole world cowers from you. Like your very skin is laced with evil. Like if they touched you, comforted you, they'd be condemned to share your fate. Condemned to die alone, unloved, a parasite on a society that would rather-"

""Enough!" Harry intervened at last.

* * *

><p><em>Scott was curled on his side. His clothes were torn and covered in his own blood; he struggled to cover himself. Draco stumbled over to him and landed on his knees.<em>

"_Fuck!" was all he could say as he helped Scott onto his back, gingerly pulling his shirt closed and his trousers back up. _

_Scott let out a yelp as Draco placed a hand on his chest, _"_Think they've done in a few ribs," he explained in a shaky voice._

_Draco's heart was spinning, "Fuck fuck fuck!"_

* * *

><p>"Draco, you don't even know if-" Asha cut herself off and started again, "He was on the streets long before you knew him."<p>

Richard added, "He got his lot in life and you got yours, its shit, I'm not saying its not-"

"-but there's fuck all I can do to change it, so drink my damn tea and snap out of it?" Draco finished for him sardonically.

"Yes."

Draco narrowed his eyes at Richard, picked up his cup of tea, and drained it in one. "Happy?" he bit.

"Draco," Harry said gently, opening up his arms, "Come here."

Draco looked as though he wanted to resist, mindful that they were surrounded by his staff and customers. In the end he dismissed his pride and leaned his side against Harry's chest. He closed his eyes and tried to bury once more all of the memories that had become unearthed.

* * *

><p><strong>AN:**

**Let me know whatcha think?**

**x X x**

**'Rora**


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